


The Impersonated Self

by fourleggedfish



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arthur Knows About Merlin's Magic, Chronic Illness, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Merlin doesn't know that Arthur knows, Merlin's Magic Revealed, Other, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2019-08-23 20:28:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 106,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16625876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourleggedfish/pseuds/fourleggedfish
Summary: What if Arthur gave a different answer to the Disir, but no one knew it?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Further warnings at the end if you want them. They may spoil a bit though.

** PROLOGUE: The Disir **

 

_“I would have you become the king you’re destined to be.”_

_Arthur leaned upright, gaze calculating. Even so, what he actually felt was more akin to curiosity. “If I do save Mordred, all my father’s work will be for nothing. Sorcery will reign once more in Camelot.” He watched Merlin, intent. “Is that what you’d want?”_

_Merlin seemed to be shaking, a subtle inability to hold still, and though he likely didn’t realize it, his face – his eyes, fixed on Arthur – gave away so much. But he didn’t speak._

_“Perhaps my father was wrong.” Arthur was willing to grant that – he’d said as much before, fought with him over his unyielding stance on magic, his paranoia about it, his lack of discernment or justice or mercy where it was concerned. This was nothing Merlin hadn’t heard before, of course. But Arthur hadn’t previously stared at him as he said it, trying to fathom out this…sorcerer. This man who stood by Arthur when by rights, Merlin should hate him like all the rest seemed to do. “Perhaps the old ways aren’t as evil as we thought.”_

_Across the fire, Merlin’s breathing had picked up, but not in fear – not in anything so simple. He watched Arthur with the rims of his eyes reddened, a sheen over the irises. There_ was _fear there, but more of other things – a terrible hope, and despair, and a perilous, treacherous_ want _. And sadness. Because to counter that hope, something else seemed to seep in around the edges, and Arthur couldn’t, for the life of him, parse it out just then, for all that Merlin’s gaze never really wavered from his._

_“So what should we do? Accept magic?”_

_Merlin was biting the inside of his cheek, agitated, and his nostrils flared as he exhaled through his nose, finally breaking eye contact for a moment. He was on the verge of tears, the giant petticoat. They weren’t relieved or happy tears, though. That thing curling at the edges of the expression on his face seemed to be something else._

_“Or let Mordred die?”_

_Merlin shook his head, sort of – it wasn’t a very committed response, more a negation at being asked to choose at all. He looked down, still minutely shaking his head and holding back whatever it was he truly thought or wanted to say. The struggle fascinated Arthur, but in a terrible way. He looked at Merlin and saw a conflict that, to Arthur, was pointless. Surely the answer was obvious. Merlin was a sorcerer. Merlin was a good man. Magic had never been the problem – men were the problem. And a man’s life was at stake. Merlin was not the sort of person to allow an innocent man to die for the sake of a principle – certainly not the same innocent man he’d saved once as a child._

_Finally, some of the tension left Merlin’s frame, and it was obvious that he’d come to a decision. He sank back a bit, more relaxed, and swallowed the vestiges of whatever emotion had left him in such turmoil. He took another moment to gather his thoughts though, words stuck behind downcast eyes, and then he leaned forward, swallowed several times. Nerves, likely. It had to be terrifying, Arthur thought, to keep a secret your whole life, one that could get you killed, and then one day just….tell it. To the very king who may kill you for it. Arthur nodded to encourage him. There was no better moment; the time for secrets had to be over._

_“There can be no place for magic in Camelot.”_

_Arthur didn’t react at first. He’d heard the words, and the way Merlin forced the first half of them, but he couldn’t quite believe it. He watched Merlin give those tiny head shakes, still denying, maybe some part of him refusing the lie he’d just told. Arthur narrowed his eyes and leaned back against his pack, still looking at Merlin, and the way Merlin had finally turned away, eyes downcast, not at ease, not pleased with himself. Just… He looked like saying that to Arthur had broken something in him. In which case, why say it?_

_Arthur nodded to himself, eyes straying to the cave, and contemplated his choice._

_* * *_

_In the morning, Arthur ordered Merlin to wait outside with the horses while he spoke to the Disir. In the afternoon, when they returned to Camelot, it was to the news that Mordred had succumbed to his wound. Arthur’s initial response was rage at the betrayal of the Disir. His next was confusion, because when he looked back at Merlin, he saw only relief on the man’s face. Was it relief at thinking that Arthur had refused to cede to the demands of the triple goddess, or relief that Mordred – who Merlin had never really seemed to like or trust since meeting the boy again as an adult – was dead?_

_Arthur wasn’t sure. But it gave him pause enough to reserve his anger until he could be certain that it was justified._

 

 

** CHAPTER 1 **

****

Arthur remembered, vividly, the day Guinevere died.

It felt surreal, still. The sun had been high. Bright. It was a beautiful day, and the water at the cauldron had been so blue that Arthur found it hard to look at. He remembered pleading with Guinevere to remember her love for him. He remembered the bright, pure light of a goddess on the water, and Merlin wearing someone else’s face, dressed up like an idiot as if Arthur wouldn’t notice his worn, familiar boots poking out of the bottom of that hideous dress, giving him away. He remembered his sister, and yelling, blood and a small, crippled white dragon, and Guinevere stilled in his arms. And he remembered like sounds echoing in a thick fog, or heard from underwater, Merlin’s voice crying, pleading with the light on the lake to save her, just please, in the name of all that was good, please save the queen.

Even Arthur knew that it was too late, however sympathetic the formless goddess might be. Guinevere was already gone. Her body died in his arms, but his wife, his first love, had been gone for far longer than he had noticed. He should have noticed. It would have made mourning her easier, he thought, if he had known when they rescued her from the tower that she was, for all intents and purposes, already dead. Arthur had been prepared for that – he could have handled that. It was the months that followed, the false security, the misplaced trust, the knowledge of his own blindness and the disservice that it did to his queen – his own betrayal of their love and knowledge of each other, for not even noticing that it wasn’t her. That was what caused his grief to linger so strong, festering. The guilt that he felt at letting her down had nothing, in the end, to do with her actual death, and everything to do with how he had missed it entirely. He had defiled her by continuing to blindly love and trust her imposter. For gods’ sakes, he had been _intimate_ with her, with the perversion of her, right up until learning the truth.

They didn’t bury his sister. The last Arthur saw of Morgana, the little white dragon had twisted its unnaturally angled limbs around her body, and though Merlin tried to convince him to pass it off as a mourning embrace, Arthur couldn’t avoid the realization that it was probably eating her. He had no sorrow left for that, though. It seemed fitting that a predator and a betrayer should be betrayed and consumed by a predator, at the last.

Over a year had passed since that day. Arthur mourned, of course he did, and sealed the queen’s chambers in a manner far too reminiscent of his father sealing Ygraine’s. Merlin recovered from the head wound he sustained falling off of the path to the cauldron, though it caused some worry at first, and took a fair bit of time. Arthur recovered from the broken wrist he suffered from going down after him. They buried Guinevere near her brother and her father, on the hillside, where the sun would shine every day. It had become a pilgrim’s path since then, and the entire hill was covered in flowers from the seeds that her mourning subjects spread. Arthur couldn’t bring himself to go there anymore; it was too beautiful a place for a grave.

Arthur didn’t think that Merlin visited her either, not since the ceremony itself. The only time Arthur really heard him speak of her was in the beginning, when Merlin tried to apologize for breaking his promise to Arthur – for failing to break Morgana’s curse and restore Gwen to him. That should have been the moment when Arthur told him that he knew how hard Merlin had tried to keep his word – that he knew it was Merlin who summoned the goddess and drove the dragon away from Arthur where he crouched, refusing to weep on the shore, uncaring as the beast charged him. That it was Merlin, not some recluse lady sorcerer, who picked Excalibur up from where Arthur dropped it and drove it through Morgana from behind, so hard…so hard that a solid eight inches protruded out the other side of her. Driven by the kind of rage that can only come from grief. There was a terrible strength in grief.

But he didn’t. Arthur yelled at him a bit, but not about the broken promise, and definitely not about the secret magic. In truth, he had no idea what he’d gone on about, only that eventually, he looked up to find his chambers empty, and a trail of broken crockery to show Arthur’s path through the room. Merlin disappeared for a few days, and then showed up one dawn again as if nothing had happened. They went on as they always had, for the most part. Except that now, Merlin was quieter, and Arthur still didn’t know why Merlin didn’t trust him with the truth of his magic when it was clear that his loyalty to Camelot – to Arthur – could never be called a sham. He contradicted everything that Arthur thought he might understand about a sorcerer – he was good, and he was loyal, and he risked his life without even the slightest hope of gratitude, and he chose to be a servant. Merlin asked for nothing but that – he _asked_ for that, to be allowed to keep his station. Arthur didn’t even know why Merlin was there in the first place. Arthur’s Camelot was not Uther’s, it had no purge and never would, but it was still hostile to magic, and Arthur knew it just as surely as he knew that Merlin would never betray him, sorcerer or no. Surely that made Merlin a traitor to his own people – to those with magic – which was mystery enough in itself, but Arthur found himself far more preoccupied with why someone of Merlin’s power would consent to lower themselves to be a servant at all, than with why he had turned so far against magic that he even advised Arthur to renounce it to the Triple Goddess herself.

Arthur could not pretend to understand Merlin’s motivations, but he understood _Merlin_ just fine. He was far too gregarious for a man who had no secrets, and far too simplistic for a truly simple man. Everybody liked him. He liked everybody back. Everybody looked at Merlin and thought, “That is a man I can trust with my life.” And then they would make sure that they didn’t let him carry anything fragile because he’d certainly trip or run into a wall and break it. But the reverse of that trust was not true; Merlin gave away nothing, and he did it with the guile of someone who has kept his secrets for so long that it no longer occurred to him not to. He _was_ secrets. He was confidences unshared. He was… alone in a way that Arthur understood. Never show anything vulnerable – never let them see the cracks or the weaknesses or the way you doubt yourself at night. Never let them see _you_ , or the things you love, or the things you believe in, or they might gain power over you, and end you. Of course Arthur understood that. He was King. A king can never be weak, which meant that he could also never be _known_.

It was second nature for Merlin to smile, bumble, grin, gripe and give the very skin off of his back if someone else needed it more. But he didn’t confide. He shared something like wisdom when Arthur needed it, but he didn’t do so the way other men did – by relating personal anecdotes. Everyone knew Merlin. But no one _knew_ him. It took Arthur far too long to figure that out. When he finally parsed out what Merlin was hiding, it wasn’t the sorcery that shocked him. It was realizing that as far as he was able, Merlin had been telling Arthur the truth about himself all along, and Arthur had dismissed him for a fool every time. Merlin never truly lied. Dissembled, yes. Misled, disguised, diverted, omitted – he did all of those things out of self-preservation. But otherwise, he was shockingly open for a man carrying a heritage that could get him killed. And he kept using his forbidden gifts to save the lives of people who would show their gratitude for it with a pyre.

It took a certain cunning to hide in plain sight like that, right under Arthur’s nose. Right under _Uther’s_ , usually telling nothing but the plain truth, and yet still never seen.

It was disturbing.

It should have been terrifying.

Arthur should have wondered if Merlin’s lies, his veiled truths, spelled treachery.

All Arthur wanted to do was grab him around the neck, squeeze a little bit, and then hang onto him for a while, waiting for the struggling and the squirming and the indignant (poor cover for terrified) protests to fade away. Long enough for Merlin to get it through his thick skull that Arthur _knew._ That Arthur _understood_ , and why on earth shouldn’t they finally just share the burden? Just a bit, sometimes, over mulled wine at night or under a canopy of stars by a campfire after a good hunt. The hardest part of being king was that Arthur found himself surrounded by people every hour of every day, alone in a sea of flesh and words and thoughts, and fetid breath, and false obeisance, in a shiny citadel where everyone knew his name and what he did and how to speak to him, how best to use him, and everything about him except who and what _Arthur_ was. And none of those people knew what that felt like.

Merlin knew _exactly_ what that felt like.

Once he’d recategorized his manservant in his mind (loyal, stupid, insubordinate, noble, _magical_ idiot), his first unfettered reaction to the new picture of Merlin in his mind had not been anger. Neither was it fear, or betrayal, or suspicion, or anything else that a sane king should feel upon discovering a liar and technical traitor sharing his most personal spaces. It was affection, and some kind of want that touched on a dark part of Arthur that he didn’t much like. Some stupid part of himself simply wanted to grab it, wrestle it down, and own it. He always had, and it made him think of maces swung in the marketplace at a mouthy, gangly boy who dared call Arthur a bully to his face, at a time when he needed to be told it most.

Arthur frowned into the fire in front of him, the sky dark outside his chamber windows and the air sweet with peat and a waft of early autumn. The mulled wine tasted warm and spicy-sweet on his tongue, a billowing heat suffused in his veins. He had no idea where Merlin had found it; Cook wouldn’t normally make it until closer to midwinter. It was Arthur’s favorite drink of the season, though, and he’d mentioned it just that morning at court, wistfully, in a room filled with councilors, and Merlin lurking around the edges.

Speaking of Merlin, the (in)sufferable idiot hadn’t once stopped chattering, his back bent in a curl over Arthur’s chainmail as he inspected it for rust and breaks, sat on the floor near the fire at Arthur’s feet. It had been a long time since Merlin last babbled on about nothing, his voice a soothing background to Arthur’s thoughts the way rain or wind might be. Arthur eyed the lanky frame of the man, like a rack of antlers dressed in old peasant clothes. And he thought to himself, _Yes, I want that._ A giant, blabbering, grinning coat rack who always but never told the truth, would happily go to his death for the sake of men who would never stand by him if they knew what he was, who juggled to entertain street children and wrote noble speeches and lied by omission every day, and whose once brilliant smiles no longer reached his eyes. Where on earth did such a man even come from, let alone come to him?

“Where did you learn to read?”

“ – and then Thomas told him to – what?”

“Read, Merlin. Where did you learn to do it?”

Merlin started to shake his head, but the confusion appeared too much for him and he cocked his head instead. “You…want to know where I learned to read?”

“Is it that complicated a question?” Arthur frowned into his goblet, which was still mostly full, and then looked at Merlin again, all sharp angles set off by the fire lighting him from behind. “You know, I could hang hats off of your shoulder blades.” That was not what he’d meant to say, surely. The wine really was very nice.

Merlin blinked. “…you don’t own any hats.”

Arthur squinted at him. “I own _all_ the hats. I’m the _king_ , Merlin.”

“You don’t even like hats.”

“I don’t _have_ to like hats. I’m the – “

“ – king, yes, you said.” Merlin paused. “Did you want me to fetch you a hat?”

Arthur glared at him for good measure. “Don’t be ridiculous; I despise hats. Messy, wooly things.” He waved the whole notion off with his goblet, which splattered around a bit, and then sipped at his wine some more. Or gulped. He tried to sip, really, but he came near to choking on it so he must have miscalculated. The sweetness of it carried just the right amount of heat to balance the sharpness of clove and cinnamon, and Arthur twisted his head around to lick the spatter from his thumb. When he looked up, he found Merlin staring, his eyes blank but his cheeks flushed.

Arthur cocked his head at him. Merlin shook himself and went back to the chainmail, sans blathering. Wine forgotten in his hand, Arthur stared at the knob of a vertebra at the base of Merlin’s neck long enough that it, too, flushed pink.

Interesting. “Do you remember when you juggled?”

“Oh, not that again.” Merlins scrubbed the back of his hand over his forehead, a cleaning rag dangling from his fingers.

“You were…” He twiddled his fingers a bit, expression distant. “…dexterous. Not like you. Clumsy.”

“I told you, I have _many_ talents, you’re just not looking.”

“Yes.” It must have been magic juggling, the cheat. Arthur felt his mouth smear – he must be smiling. Good. Smiling was good. He set his goblet aside and struggled upright from his sprawl in the chair. “I have decided to look.” He eyed Merlin’s face, and then the rest of him for good measure. He twiddled his fingers, possibly too close to Merlin’s face if the way he flinched back was anything to go by. “I would like to know what other sorts of talented things you might be able to do.”

Merlin’s mouth did something complicated and then his eyes went wide over a bit of slack jaw before it really occurred to Arthur how suggestive that sounded, and that he had purred a little too much.

“Oh god, no. No, sorry.” Arthur shoved himself back again as Merlin balked, a proper balk at that, and let the chair catch him again when he couldn’t quite stand as intended. “No, that was entirely inappropriate.” He dug his palms into his eye sockets.

“It’s alright,” Merlin offered, but he sounded too cautious now.

“God, just, the wine,” Arthur tried to explain. He could feel it thumping all of a sudden in his ear drums, a cadence to match the beat of his heart. “I don’t know what came over me.”

Merlin was on his feet when Arthur looked up again, chainmail and armor discarded on the floor. “It’s alright. Come on.” He gripped at Arthur’s bicep and tugged. “Let’s get you to bed.”

“I drank too much. How did I drink too much?”

“It wasn’t watered down as much as usual,” Merlin said. “I know you like the taste better that way.”

Arthur nodded, somehow on his feet and pointed at his empty bed with Merlin pressing lightly between his shoulder blades. God, he missed Guinevere, the ache more fierce tonight than it had been for the past year. He bumped into the bed and dropped his hands to sit. At least he felt more miserable over what he’d said to Merlin than over his absent wife, for once. He looked up when Merlin tugged at his tunic, and Merlin returned his gaze in only a flicker, wary, or maybe just contemplative, before focusing on the laces again at Arthur’s throat. Just in case it was the former, Arthur said, “Don’t be offended. I didn’t mean it like that. I wouldn’t. You’re a servant, and I wouldn’t make you do that. It’s not right.”

Merlin raised a brow, a bit like Gaius in that affect, and offered, his voice hesitant, “I’m not offended. I would, though. If it… If you wanted. I wouldn’t mind, if you did mean it.”

“What?”

“I mean, it’s fine,” Merlin backpedaled, one hand waving off while the other tugged the last of the knot out and loosened the tunic. “If you just need, you know…something. If you’re lonely, I mean, or just cold, or whatever. With Gwen gone, I mean, you might…have needs, or just…” He flapped his hand, which really conveyed nothing as far as clarity went. “And I know some of the servants do that, sometimes. I wouldn’t mind if you wanted a hand or something – ”

Arthur was moving before he’d really registered the intent to do so in his wine-addled mind. Merlin squawked and it took a moment for Arthur realize that he’d made that noise upon Arthur slamming his back into the wall, one hand fisted in Merlin’s collar and neckerchief, pulling it tight up against his throat. “Don’t you ever – _ever_ – “

“Arthur!” Merlin grabbed at his wrist to try and pry it off. “I won’t – I’m sorry – I just thought it might – “

“What, _help_?! You are never to imply that you can take Guinevere’s place!”

“I wasn’t – !”

“That’s not your place! It’s _never_ your place! You _never_ – “

“Arthur, please…”

Arthur dropped his hand as if scalded and breathed heavily, stumbling back a step as he watched Merlin cough and tug his neckerchief off to one side to better catch his breath. When he reached to help, Merlin skittered away without showing Arthur his back, his hand held up in that strange warding gesture that Arthur had seen him make whenever they were under attack. At a loss, Arthur retreated and sank back down onto his mattress, trembling. He was more drunk than he’d thought, and his temper, familiar as it was, had come just as unexpectedly as it had gone. He recognized Uther in that. It made him feel slightly sick.

Merlin lowered his hand and straightened, and his face hardened in anger. “For the record, _sire_ , you are not the only one who misses her.”

“I know that. Merlin – “

“No.” Merlin strode to the cupboard, drew out Arthur’s night clothes, and flung them across the room. They smacked Arthur in the face and fell into his lap, followed by Merlin appearing in front of him with alarming stealth to all but rip Arthur’s arms off along with his tunic. “And in case you forgot, she was _my_ friend first. If you really think I would disrespect her by trying to _take her place_ , then you are an absolute cabbage head.”

Arthur allowed the manhandling because really, Merlin probably deserved to get some of his own back, and he didn’t like hearing the hitch and crack in Merlin’s voice as he spoke back. Arthur waited for Merlin to turn away with his dirty tunic and then offered, “I don’t want you whoring yourself out. That’s all.”

Merlin paused, and the very silence was murderous; Arthur didn’t need to look at his face to know as much. “Whoring myself,” he echoed, his voice deceptively flat.

“I mean, you’re a servant, Merlin.” He should probably stop trying to explain himself, since the words weren’t coming out right at all. “And you shouldn’t even be a servant, really, much less – “ He didn’t get a chance to finish that, for which he was perversely thankful, as Merlin chose that moment to try to suffocate him with his sleeping tunic. Once it was on all of the way, and Merlin had tugged his suspiciously heavy arms through the right holes, Arthur added, “Because of your birth. It’s really not proper.”

Merlin’s face did something blank, and Arthur blinked at it, trying to figure it out. “You mean because of my parentage.” Flat.

Arthur nodded. “Exactly! See? You understand.” At least they could have that out in the open, finally.

“So, since I’m a fatherless bastard, I’m not good enough to be a whore, much less your servant.”

Arthur’s brow creased. “No, because your father – “

“Will there be anything more, sire?”

 _– was a noble._ Had to be, really. Why else would a peasant know how to read? And lords should not be servants. And dragons had lords – some kind of lord – because Merlin told the white dragon off for trying to attack them, and it listened, and something… Arthur shut his eyes for a moment and knuckled his forehead. He was going to have a horrible headache in the morning. “No – look, Merlin, I know that – “ The click of the door interrupted him and he looked up, only to find the space before him lacking in manservants. For good measure, he scanned the rest of the room as well to confirm that yes, he was alone. “Dammit.” He was too drunk for this.

It was too much trouble just then to find a way under his blankets, and he was wearing riding trousers still, and he was the damn king, and why was everything so difficult all of a sudden? Stupid secret magical lord manservant. Arthur flopped back and let his body just sink into the mattress. Good enough. He could berate himself for his drunken idiocy in the morning.

* * *

_“Merlin. Merlin! Wake up.” Arthur flailed a foot out and tried to kick at him but missed. He could see Gwen lying on the path above them. “Merlin…”_

_He was free suddenly, sword bent, hilt scuffed from being used as a lever, arm throbbing and likely broken. He shook Merlin’s limp form, blood along his hairline, and disentangled him from the multitude of packs. He’d made Merlin bring them all, but why? They didn’t need everything. Petty – Arthur was being petty to make him carry them all like a pack mule, and now he wasn’t moving. “Wake up, wake up, wake up – ”_

* * *

The shush of the curtains woke Arthur, followed by a stab of sunlight that he could have done without. He growled something inquisitive that sounded like, “Mrrrrln.”

“Good morning, sire.”

Arthur groaned. He really couldn’t stand proper-servant Merlin. “Why must you do that?” Something needed to be done; he couldn’t deal with Merlin being all…servant-y.

Merlin paused in arranging breakfast, then apparently deemed that rhetorical and went back to placing cutlery. The tray only held enough food for one. Arthur was convinced that Merlin previously only ate enough because he stole extras from Arthur’s plate. He would need to have words with the kitchen staff about portion size going forward. It had been months since Merlin last ate with him. Well… _with_ being a relative thing when one of the participants was consensually stealing the other’s food.

“Breakfast is served.” He approached Arthur and held out a bottle of foul green-brown sludge. “Hangover remedy. Gaius made it fresh this morning.”

“Ugh.” Arthur held his hand out for it without bothering to sit up. “Cheers.”

“Down in one,” Merlin echoed absently. Habit. He fussed with the breakfast service some more, poured a goblet of water, and then moved away to start tidying.

For lack of anything better to do, Arthur forced down the hangover remedy, gagged for a moment, then stumbled over to his chair and spent some time staring blankly at the food arranged neatly on a trencher. Clearly, no one had picked it over or filched any sausages from it, other than the necessary nibbles to test for poisons. It was hateful. “I can’t eat this.” Arthur thumped his elbow onto the table and smashed his face into his palm for good measure. And if Merlin was the one doing the poison-testing again, Arthur was going to throttle him. There were people for that – other people. People Arthur needed less. And of course, when he put it that way, it was a horrid thing to think. He smooshed his face a bit harder against his hand and dug his fingers in around the thumping places in his head.

“Can I get you something else, sire? There’s probably pudding, or eggs and porridge.”

“No…no food. You eat it.” Arthur blinked his eyes open wide to peer through the webs of his fingers. The plate slid out from in front of him, and the whole situation made him want to shout. “Merlin, about last night.”

“Nothing to worry about, sire.” Merlin took the plate to the door and placed it on a side table. He pointedly did not eat it himself. “I shouldn’t have kept your cup topped off – you didn’t realize how much you drank.”

“Right.” Arthur gave him the side eye and hoped that Gaius’s foul concoction kicked in soon.  “Did I hit you?” He didn’t think he did, but it was fuzzy, and he could recall thinking, at one point, that Merlin might use his magic to keep Arthur away from him.

“No, sire.” He was picking up clothes now and tossing them into the laundry basket, seemingly pointed in how he kept his back turned. “Nothing but a little friendly asphyxiation.”

“What? Merlin!” Arthur stumbled to his feet and tried not to notice how Merlin’s eyes darted back and forth for a moment the way Arthur’s might when under attack. He would have to think about that at some point, why Merlin seemed to think him a threat nowadays – why he always mapped the rooms he entered and checked for escape routes. But for the time being, Arthur reached out and managed to grab at the stupid neckerchief rag thing that Merlin was wearing, in spite of Merlin’s flinching back, which seemed involuntary. Arthur froze at the sight of purple marks – a clear thumb on one side and three fingers blurred together on the other. “Merlin,” he breathed. He wondered if he sounded or looked as horrified as he felt.

Merlin stepped back, his expression more ambiguous than impassive while the action itself could be nothing but calculated. Arthur’s fingers slipped from the fabric of the neckerchief, and he let his hand fall slowly back to his side. After meeting Arthur’s gaze for slightly longer than was comfortable, Merlin turned away and resumed picking up Arthur’s mess from the night before, silent.

Arthur watched him for long enough to realize two things. First, that Merlin wasn’t going to offer anything more, and second, that the mess wasn’t really getting any better; Merlin was just moving it around in some sort of nervous need not to stand still or look at Arthur. Eventually, he passed close enough for Arthur to snag an elbow and use the momentum to propel Merlin around to face him. Rather than submit to a conversation, Merlin hunched up the shoulder nearest Arthur’s hand, and simply waited, unmoving, with his eyes downcast. The Good Servant, as it were. On anyone else, it would be perfectly acceptable – even proper. On Merlin, it was just wrong.

Arthur shook his head at the lowered lashes and the thin line of Merlin’s mouth, but he maintained his grip, which was more restraint than it should have been. Merlin could have been on the verge of being dragged to the cells by it, to judge by the stiffness of his limbs and the care with which he held his arm perfectly still in Arthur’s hand, as if not to offer resistance that might be taken the wrong way by an overzealous guard. Merlin was passive. Merlin should never be passive.

“Tell me what happened last night.”

Merlin twitched his chin to one side, but his eyes remained elsewhere. “You were drunk, sire. I put you to bed.”

“That doesn’t explain why I tried to choke you.”

Merlin flinched. It was subtle, but there.

“Look.” Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment to gather his thoughts, and then tried for soothing. “Obviously, something else happened. You don’t need to spare my pride.” He paused, then added, “It’s not like to you pass on an opportunity to tell me I’ve done something wrong. You should be rubbing it my face.”

“I apologize if I fail to live up to my lord’s standards.”

Arthur blinked a few times, more shocked than anything else. A wave of anger followed, unexpected in its intensity, and far beyond Arthur’s ability to control in that moment. “What the _hell_ is wrong with you?! This isn’t _you_! You don’t _do_ this!”

He watched Merlin angling away, elbow still caught fast, lashes lowered so that Arthur couldn’t see his eyes, as if in anticipation of a blow. Perhaps it was the resignation that did it – Merlin would have let him. Something in his posture screamed that Arthur could hit if he wanted, and Merlin wouldn’t necessarily stop him.

Arthur released him and shoved them apart from each other as if one of them had the plague. His fury dispersed like smoke. “Merlin, I don’t want this from you.” It was perhaps the most honest thing he could have said, and yet still, it sounded wrong – could be taken so wrong. “You don’t grovel. You don’t keep silent. You’re of _no use_ to me like this.” When Merlin still didn’t say anything, Arthur sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose before turning away. “Look, just…pull yourself together. I need a servant I can rely on.” Which was unfair, since no one he had ever met was more reliable, if he discounted actual cleanliness, punctuality and coordination.

Hesitant, Merlin simply asked, “Will you be joining the knights for practice this morning, sire?”

Arthur straightened up, facing the window. For no reason he could really pinpoint – though he suspected it was the _sire_ that did it – he reached back, hooked Merlin by the scruff, pulled him around and squished him a bit.

Merlin went stiff and still in his grasp. “Sire – Arthur?”

“Just hold still.” Arthur manhandled him into a more comfortable position, and then resumed the squishing. He had no idea how long these things were supposed to last, but Merlin wasn’t trying to get away, so that had to be a good sign, right? Once he deemed a sufficient duration had passed, and before things could get any more awkward, Arthur patted Merlin’s shoulder blades – really too sharp – and then nudged him back.

Merlin stumbled a bit, righted himself, and then stared. “Did you just hug me?”

Arthur shrugged and turned away toward the changing screen. “Looked like you needed it.”

“Right.” A shuffle of soft-soled shoes betrayed Merlin fidgeting but otherwise not moving away. “Is that an apology or something? Because that was hardly adequate as far as hugs go.”

“Surely there’s some etiquette about insulting the way a king bestows his embraces.”

Silence.

“Look, if it was that horrible, then just forget about it.” Arthur came out from behind the screen and put his hands on his hips. When Merlin merely stared at him a bit, he sighed and prompted, “Clothes? You know, those things in the wardrobe that you never fold correctly?”

“Oh.” Merlin looked at the wardrobe, then shook himself as if from a stupor. “Yes. Clothes.”

Arthur rolled his eyes and went back behind the screen. “Today, Merlin.”

“Don’t get your britches in a twist; I’m getting them.”

“Get yourself something more suitable too; I don’t want to listen to you complaining that I’ve ruined your only pair of trousers or some other ridiculous thing. You’re sparing with me today.”

“What?! No. No, I’m not. Why would you say that?”

With his head ducked over the wash basin, Arthur smiled. But he hadn’t forgotten that he owed far more of an apology than one awkward hug and some banter could satisfy. And he wanted to know what happened last night so that whatever apology was due, he could be certain of making proper redress. Maybe bashing Merlin around the training ground for a while would make him more pliable.

* * *

“ _Mer_ lin!”

Merlin rolled – flailed? – underneath the pile of armor, shield and sword that Arthur had shoved him into earlier that morning. 

Arthur sighed at the clanking pile of manservant spilled over the practice field. “Honestly, it’s like you’re not even trying here. Get up.”

“I _am_ trying!”

“You’re embarrassing yourself.”

A flare of blue peeked out from one eyehole of the battered old helm crammed over Merlin’s head. It was a surprisingly effective glare for being singular, and mostly hidden. “If you’re so keen for a sparing partner, why don’t you ask one of them?!”

Arthur glanced up at the collection of knights trying not to be noticed on the other side of the field. He might need to go a bit easier on them for a while; they were cringing again whenever he stepped onto the field. Rather than addressing anything in that vein, Arthur replied, “They already know how to defend themselves. You, on the other hand…” He regarded his heap of manservant with a sad frown. “I despair of you sometimes, Merlin. It’s a miracle you haven’t been killed already.”

Merlin struggled and waved his armor-clad limbs around well enough that he managed to flop into a new position. “Maybe you just need to stop getting into so much trouble. Honestly, you can hardly walk through the market without getting attacked or enchanted, and then I have to – OW!”

“Stop squirming.” Arthur hauled up on a pauldron until he’d dragged Merlin upright by it. They eyed each other, Arthur critical and Merlin wary. “I think you’ve had enough for today; you’ll be useless at your chores later. Come on.” He slapped Merlin’s metal-clad arm and Merlin staggered again. “Just try not to fall over again.”

“Easy for you to say,” Merlin muttered. “Do you know how much all of this weighs?” He flapped his gauntlet at his own chest.

“Yes,” Arthur replied. Because he did – he was wearing even more of it than Merlin. “Idiot.”

“Well, do you know how much _I_ weigh?” Merlin demanded as they made their way toward the armory.

Arthur gave him an incredulous look, his nose wrinkling on one side. “Why on earth would I need to know that?”

Without missing a beat (in the conversation, that is – his feet were literally _everywhere_ ), Merlin replied, “Because then you would realize that I can’t stand up in all of this because it weighs _as much as I do_.” He huffed, and then added, “Prat!”

“Does it?” Arthur scrutinized the skinny frame of his manservant – that was right: antlers for legs, and a hat rack up top. “Well. That just means you need to train harder. Put some muscles on those bones.”

Merlin jammed his shoulder at the armory door until it opened for him, and Arthur suppressed the urge to either smirk at the spectacle of Merlin outdone by a door, or yell at him for going through before his king. “I have muscles,” he muttered. “I have plenty of muscles – I have to carry practically everything you own over the course of a day.”

“Stop exaggerating.” Arthur grabbed his shoulder again when Merlin went to claw at the straps holding the armor in place. “The only thing your muscles are any good for is folding laundry, carrying plants and holding quills. So basically useless.”

“What, because I’m bad with a sword, I’m not good for anything else?”

“Sir Hector is bad with a sword,” Arthur said. “ _You_ are worse than a kitchen maid with a stick.”

Merlin squinted at him but remained silent.

“See? Even you recognize it.” Technically, Merlin should be taking Arthur’s armor off first and then fending for himself on his own gear, but if Arthur insisted on propriety, neither of them would ever get out of their armor. And Merlin could barely move in his. “How did you even get this twisted like – Merlin, I put this on you myself! How do you manage these things?”

Merlin bared his teeth. It might have been a smile of some sort; Arthur rather thought he looked like a spitting kitten. “Maybe you did it wrong.”

Arthur scoffed. “I’ve been putting on armor since before I could walk.” He wasn’t smiling though; he could feel the edges of his mouth pulling down in thought. He had a hazy recollection of the previous night, of Merlin polishing armor by the fire, talking about hats. Arthur had been trying to bring up the nobility thing. Or the magic, or both, but instead, they ended up talking about…hat racks? Maybe now was as good a time as any to try having that conversation again. “Where did you learn to write?”

Whatever Merlin had been expecting, it clearly wasn’t that. He eyed Arthur, which had the side benefit of him holding still enough that Arthur finally untwisted the leather straps cutting up under Merlin’s right arm and got it unbuckled. “That’s what you focus on? Are you serious? How did _you_ learn to write? Maybe just think about that and extrapolate.”

“Give me _some_ credit, Merlin. I know where you grew up; there wasn’t a parchment in sight. And you certainly never had tutors in Ealdor.”

Merlin’s eyes shuttered and cut to the side, and there – that was the look Arthur was starting to notice more and more. Fear. Not the kind that knights displayed in battle, or that Arthur had seen even on Merlin’s face when a situation went pear-shaped. It was something else. Deeper. A fundamental thing, like he didn’t even need to think in order to feel it, and the feeling of it was so familiar that he took no notice of it at all. Like breathing. “I dunno. I suppose I picked it up from Gaius.”

Arthur jerked unnecessarily hard at the back strap and ignored Merlin’s faint grunt. “No one just _picks up_ writing. Come on – who taught you? It couldn’t have been Gaius – you were reading his recipes practically since you got here. No one learns that fast.”

“…Arthur…”

“Your mother can write too. She sent the missive to Gaius asking for your apprenticeship. Is she the one who taught you?”

“Sure. Right. My mother taught me.”

“And how did she learn?”

They both paused, Merlin in his holding still and Arthur in his fruitless tugging of buckles.

After a moment, Arthur took a preparatory breath. He could feel it in the air, that subtle taste of all-or-nothing. He couldn’t leave this conversation now. It needed to be seen through. “Merlin, even I realize how unusual it is for a peasant to be literate. You write my speeches, for gods’ sake – I know how eloquent you are. And you don’t even do it in the common tongue half the time. You’ve obviously had a nobleman’s education.”

Merlin fumbled his feet a bit and Arthur was struck with the impression that Merlin was trying to give himself space to flee. He shook his head a bit as if to clear it, or obscure his intention, but that nebulous fear was still there.

It rankled. How could Merlin seriously stand there and deny what was obvious? “You speak more languages than I do, idiot. Latin, Greek, Nordic, Gaius’s old dusty pictograph things – you even talk to the traders from across the south sea, and I don’t even know what language that is! Do you speak the Gauls’ tongue too? The Saxons’? Merlin, there are lords and kings less educated than you. You’re an idiot, but you’re not stupid.”

They stared at each other for a while, and Merlin seemed to be trying to make himself smaller. He’d lost the usual inch of height that he had on Arthur. “It’s like you said – I never had tutors. We didn’t…have books. I just…”

Arthur gave him a dubious look. “’Picked it up’?” he scoffed. Then he turned pensive. “ _Are_ you a noble?”

Merlin started, and squeaked, “What?”

“Well, it would explain some things,” Arthur mused. He studied Merlin’s face carefully, and then examined the rest of his closed-off body language. “I’m not…unaware of what my father did during the purge, you know. Entire noble houses ceased to exist because their bloodlines carried magic. Or not. Some of them just weren’t eager enough to eliminate magic, I suppose. Or spoke out openly. Some did escape. My father used to speak of how he made raids all the way into Cenred’s kingdom to chase them down, and Ealdor is just barely over the border. He would have been there at least once. You never speak of your father, and…well. I can only imagine he’s dead.”

Merlin winced.

Careful to remain neutral, Arthur nodded in acknowledgement, but he knew the likely conclusion of that thought – that Merlin’s father was dead because of Arthur’s, directly or not. “Your mother appealed to Camelot for aid. I know what reasons she gave, and I’ll allow that it made some sense, but there’s the awkward fact that my father wasn’t surprised by it, even though it was entirely inappropriate to ask a king not-your-own for military aid, and she was familiar with the habits of our court. She’s Gaius’s relation, and she’s not native to Ealdor, is she? She’s surprisingly well spoken for a peasant, and she stood tall before a king – it was respectful and proper, but it wasn’t the way peasants scrape. She knew her manners better. And when we stayed in her house, she didn’t defer to me the way servants or peasants do – she deferred to me the way a noblewoman would to a prince. She had no shame for her poverty, made no effort to apologize for it or make up for it – she was proud. And then there’s her accent…it’s not of Essetir. Yours is, but you were raised there, so that makes sense. But Hunith…she came from Camelot. Didn’t she?”

Merlin cut his gaze sharply to the door, but Arthur still had hold of him by the strap of a rerebrace. His nostrils flared and he shot a wild-eyed look at Arthur’s face before twitching his head in the opposite direction.

Evidence seemed to bring itself into formation like a well drilled battalion. “You’re a rubbish servant.” Normally, that would earn him a squawk of indignation, but Merlin merely folded his shoulders a bit smaller. “Like you never learned your place. Because why would you, if you’re not really a peasant?” He shook his head as yet more of Merlin’s oddities slotted into place in this new tapestry. “You understand nobility. You have the sense of honor that a knight would have – responsibility for your actions, for the actions and wellbeing of those beneath you, a sense of the greater good. You counsel _me_ on that daily, it seems.” Arthur tried to catch Merlin’s gaze, but Merlin was biting his lip and staring with wide, panicked eyes at some spot of nothing in the middle of the armory. “You’re impertinent…for a servant. It wouldn’t be so for a noble. You demand. You act entitled, even if it’s polite when you do it. You speak your mind like you never learned not to. You speak to your betters like equals. You always look shocked when someone reminds you that you’re _not_ their equal. That you’re _just_ a servant.” Very softly, lest he spook Merlin like a horse, Arthur added, “You have magic. Not just tricks and incants like sorcery. You have the kind a child is born with. The kind my father would have…would have drowned you for, in the purge. Had he found you. It’s in your blood.”

“Stop.” It was only a shiver of a word, but it was enough. Merlin seemed unable to control his quickening breaths, or the trembling that ran through his arm where the backs of Arthur’s knuckles rested, caught in the leather strap he’d been trying to undo just a few moments ago.

Arthur swayed a fraction back, concerned by the way Merlin couldn’t seem to still himself, or look at Arthur, or control his breathing. “Merlin, breathe. It’s alright,” he murmured. “I’m not threatening you. It’s not a threat.”

Merlin shook his head in short, sharp jerks that increased in violence until he all but exploded out of Arthur’s grasp. The fear tasted sharp in the air all around them, and Arthur held his hands out, palms facing Merlin. He tried not to be obvious about blocking the path to the door, but Merlin was like prey in that room, and his nostrils flared the moment Arthur shifted. The air turned acrid and for a moment. Arthur felt hairs raise along his arms and the back of his neck, a static tingling of what could only be magic congealing in a small space.

Arthur shook his head and fought his own knee-jerk reaction. He felt frantic at the charge in the air, like lightening struck into puddles and the smell of it like the air might crackle and burn. “Merlin, calm down.” He hazarded a step closer and Merlin tripped back, his mouth grim and pressed into a thin line, but his throat working as if he might either swallow or choke. “Listen to me, Merlin. You need to breathe, and calm down, and listen to me. Just listen. Can you do that?” Arthur had shuffled back far enough that he could bar the door if he wanted to without taking his eyes from Merlin’s shaking form on the other side of the room. He knew, he _knew_ how bad that would look, but worse would be having some other knight or squire or servant walk in when Merlin appeared so close to an outright panic. Arthur felt as if his hair were standing on end. He could only imagine what Merlin might do – unconsciously, accidentally – if someone startled him by walking in. If he felt cornered or exposed.

Slowly, so that Merlin could see every movement clearly, Arthur reached back and to the right, and pulled the bar into place across the door. Arthur braced himself for all manner of reactions – flying swords, a storm, Merlin attacking him with his magic or even with his body, fire or lack of air or darkness or pressure or pain or –

But none of it came. After a tense series of heartbeats and held breath, Arthur felt the tension bleed out of the air, and the unpleasant tang of magic, like metal, faded from his nostrils. Across the room, Merlin stumbled back into a pillar and then folded like a paper doll with a short, sheer inhalation like a distant crack of ice sheets on a frozen lake. Armor and plate clanked and caught, scraping together at the joints as he hunched down into the grasp of his own arms folded around his torso and choked, “ _Please_ don’t burn me.”

Arthur blinked, and his stomach felt carved out for one awful, stretched moment. It hadn’t occurred to him, honestly. Yes, he’d thought about _that_ – a small horror in the back of his mind at the thought of Merlin chained in cold iron to a stake in the courtyard and set alight for the crime of being too kind, too noble not to use his magic to save someone, even if it meant his death. But he’d never actually thought that Merlin would _fear_ that. He’d thought…. What had he thought? That Merlin didn’t care? That since he’d come to Camelot, knowing the threat that hung over him like a Damocles sword, that he wasn’t afraid of it? Of course he was afraid, Arthur thought. Only a monster wouldn’t be, and whatever magic he may have done behind Arthur’s back, behind Uther’s – whatever atrocities he may have committed in his fumbling to do what was right – Merlin was not a monster.

Merlin shuddered in on himself, visibly making an effort toward calm where he knelt, a miserable pile of armor and bone. It was grotesque, all of a sudden. Not like gore and horror, but grotesque as in unnatural and twisted and _wrong_. Merlin looked so wrong over there propped alone against the pillar, small and shaking – wrong to be covered in armor he clearly couldn’t manage and probably, if Arthur were being honest, didn’t even need. Wrong because Arthur was no threat to a warlock – and that was what Merlin had to be. The subtle difference between warlock and sorcerer in Sir Geoffrey’s books had not been lost on Arthur. Merlin was magic by blood, not choice. He didn’t make potions and carve talismans and huddle over cauldrons at the full moon, even though he could. The point was that he didn’t need to; he didn’t need some outside draw on magic to obtain it. As far as Arthur could tell, Merlin didn’t even need to speak his magic. Warlock. And really, what could Arthur possibly do to him unless Merlin let him?

And that was the crux, wasn’t it. _Let_. Merlin _would_ let him. Merlin would _let_ him do anything. Hit him, hurt him…burn him if he wanted to. Merlin had given Arthur all of himself – he’d stated as much out loud just often enough that it stuck in Arthur’s mind as some curious, awful truth. Everything that Merlin is…is Arthur’s. Merlin’s life whether Arthur wanted it or not. Merlin’s death, if Arthur asked it of him.

Arthur was not necessarily a kind man. He knew that about himself. He had bullied and he had used, he had condemned, and hurled cruelty at those beneath him, and he had killed. He had killed _innocents_ , actively and passively, by his own sword or by simply standing aside for another’s. Arthur did know that, and he knew how it looked. It hadn’t really struck him though, until that moment, that Merlin had watched him do these things. Be that man. Merlin, a warlock, had watched Arthur maim and kill men, women…children…for nothing more than having magic, or not having magic, or being different and standing accused. Merlin had watched their heads fall and their bodies burn for a crime of magic, true or not. Magic like what Merlin had. Arthur had killed people, some of them good people, for healing and growing crops and purifying water, same as for attacking Camelot or using magic to harm. And Merlin had watched him at it. Merlin had even stood at Arthur’s side for some of it. What must that kind of thing take out of a man? Merlin wasn’t evil – he wasn’t duplicitous or cruel, no matter how many lies he used to safeguard his life at Arthur’s hands – he was a good man. He was kind. And he stood beside Arthur, and Arthur was _not_.

Arthur took care to set his sword aside and remove the bulk of his armor before he approached Merlin, a whisper of chainmail swinging against his legs in the shadowed room. Merlin had found a rhythm to breathe by, finally, his ribcage heaving with it, and he had calmed, but he remained curled down into his own arms on the floor, his head hanging limp on his neck, air rasping still in his throat, and he didn’t look up when Arthur’s boots came to rest beneath his nose. He looked…defeated. He looked small. And it was _grotesque_.

“No one is going to burn you,” Arthur told him, and his own voice sounded soft and warm, and a bit broken around the edges. “I won’t burn you.” It seemed important to add that qualification, because clearly, Merlin didn’t know that already – that Arthur would never put him in the fire. That if he had to take that offered death from Merlin, he wouldn’t make a torture of it like that.

A thin wisp of air curled out from Merlin’s mouth, and with it a whispered, “You should.”

“You’re an idiot,” Arthur replied, but there was no bite to it. He sank down until he could take hold of the bits of armor still strapped across Merlin’s thin frame. His knees dug into the cold stone near enough to Merlin’s that Arthur could feel the heat from them. “Come on, now. Let’s get you out of this.” He tugged until Merlin loosened his arms enough to allow Arthur to slip off the padded shoulder guards, and then vambraces and wrist guards.

Some gentle prodding had Merlin sitting up, and then the breast plate was off as well, and Merlin had to make the actual effort of refusing to look at Arthur right in front of him. “I didn’t ask for this,” Merlin said, voice small and unsteady. He was just a crumple in front of Arthur, really, like a wadded-up piece of parchment or a discarded, dirty dish rag. “I didn’t ask for any of this.”

“We never really ask for what we’re given.” Arthur reached for the clasps of the fauld, his arms impersonal where they circled Merlin, for all that the act of it seemed intimate. Merlin sniffed to clear the congestion in his nose and Arthur made quick work of folding his fingers beneath the armor, against the cloth of trousers covering Merlin’s waist, and the sharp jut of a hipbone, before pulling the metal away.

It was a curious thing, divesting someone of the trappings of war. On the surface, such a simple act, but on review, it was a stripping. It seemed intimate and strangely violent, to peel away the protection and confront the soft flesh beneath. Like a violation. One that Merlin allowed him to commit, and afterward, thanked him for.

Briefly, Arthur kept pressing at Merlin’s arms and chest with his hands, as if there were still armor to take off, because in a way, there was; Merlin had gone armored ever since he stepped foot in Camelot. The weight of it had bent him underneath it. Eventually, Arthur’s palm came to rest over the knob at the base of Merlin’s neck, and Arthur kneaded at it where he knew that it must hurt just now, tense and stiff as it was. Merlin shivered, his body a taut bowstring of exhaustion, as if he were cold. It was just shock, Arthur knew – the dull rush of nothing that followed the wake of battle, a sap on even the strongest of men.

The words a mere breath, Merlin told him, “I’m sorry.” And then he repeated it with a hitch and a stronger tremble, and Arthur wondered what on earth Merlin thought he had to be so sorry for. A lie alone couldn’t do this to a man.

“I know,” Arthur told him, just to stop any further litany of it, because Arthur did know that he was sorry, even if he wasn’t sure what for. And then because it really was such a silly thing to have caused all of this, Arthur asked again, “How did you learn to write?”

Merlin twined his fingers together in his lap and seemed not to notice Arthur’s fingers dug into the back of his neck. Maybe it was grounding. “I’m not a noble.”

Debatable, Arthur thought. But he let it go.

“I just…picked it up. I didn’t mean to…I mean, I didn’t notice…the languages were all different.”

Arthur shook his head, because the idea that Merlin would write Arthur’s speeches in a rotating collection of Briton, Latin and who knew what other languages, and not _realize_ it? It was ridiculous. That he’d pick up a book, any book, and not be hampered by the tongue it was written in, and not _notice_ …? “Gaius didn’t ever mention it? His herb catalogues, his potion books… It never struck him as odd that he didn’t need to teach you to read them?”

Merlin shrugged, and his eyelashes fanned out along the rim of his cheek as he blinked, long and sluggish. Maybe he’d told Gaius the same thing, and unlike Arthur, Gaius hadn’t pressed the subject. Maybe it wasn’t as strange a thing as Arthur thought. Maybe it had to do with magic, or maybe Gaius hadn’t understood and thought that Merlin had received tutoring after all. The boy had been sent specifically to be a physician’s apprentice, after all; Gaius may not have realized that Merlin hadn’t prepared for that role – hadn’t studied for it. “Sorry,” Merlin said yet again.

“Stop apologizing.” Arthur shifted his hand to scrub at the sweat damp hair of Merlin’s head and then let him go and leaned back. “We need to talk about this. I need to understand. But not now. I think… I think we’ve both had enough for one day.”

Merlin nodded. He looked done in.

“Take some time to clean yourself up, and then tend me for the evening,” Arthur said. “I need to think for a while.”

Again, Merlin nodded. “You need to figure out what to do with me.”

Arthur cocked his head.

“I won’t run,” Merlin promised softly.

Arthur shook his head. “Of course not. Merlin, I’m not planning to punish you.”

This should not have been such a confusing statement. Merlin blinked stupidly at the stone tiles beneath his knees, fingers fiddling with the cuffs of his sleeves like a nervous tick, and twitched his head to one side as if trying to jolt the words about in his ears. Eventually, he weaved his head upright on his neck and gave Arthur a dull look. He looked drunk, or maybe just exhausted.

Either way, he didn’t appear in full possession of his faculties, and that worried Arthur. He felt his brows draw inward of their own accord, and reached out to cup Merlin’s face in one hand. “Merlin? Are you listening to me?”

Merlin’s eyelids seemed to grow heavy, his head tipping against Arthur’s hand as if he couldn’t quite hold it up anymore, and oh – oh, no. Arthur knew what this was – he’d seen it once before. In the mountains, at night, halfway back to Camelot with his queen’s beloved body in a crude stretcher they were pulling behind them, killed by her own mangled heart. Arthur had thought that the magic was responsible – that whatever had been inside of Guinevere, whatever force had refused to loose her – had turned on Merlin. The idiot had tried to stop it ravaging her – he’d called a goddess and then fought the malignancy that Morgana had twined into Gwen’s soul. Arthur had seen it creep like tendrils up the so-called Dolma’s arms before whatever deity summoned on the lake intervened. It hadn’t happened since, the fit. But Arthur remembered it so vividly – the clench of teeth, the rolling white of Merlin’s eyes, the unnatural arch of his neck and spine as he seized, and Arthur, barely functional in his grief, doing all he could just to keep Merlin from hurting himself or smashing his own skull against the rocks yet again. He couldn’t stomach the thought of losing yet another person he cared about.

Arthur grabbed and managed to yank Merlin around and partly down onto his side before the rigidity set in. There was a moment of struggle when Merlin seemed to think that he was being attacked, and then he let out a harsh, strangled grunt as his head arched back to thump against Arthur’s chest. His fingernails dug into Arthur’s forearm, thankfully cushioned by the gambeson that he had yet to take off. “Alright – I’ve got you.” Arthur fought a moment to keep him in place without hurting him. More for himself than Merlin, who likely wouldn’t recall this anymore than he’d recalled the last one, he repeated, “It’s alright,” and loosened his arms only enough that he wouldn’t hinder the convulsions any more than necessary.

Arthur unfocused his eyes and stared forward, unseeing, the only privacy he could really offer right now as the fit shook Merlin’s frame, muscles cording in a palsy under Arthur’s hands like cramps that would not let up. The force of it jolted Arthur as well, but he refused to offer Merlin any more indignity than he was already suffering from it. He tried not to listen either but it was harder to close his ears than his eyes when the man in his arms sounded like he might be choking. He let Merlin’s limbs contract and curl him into a loose comma, and used that tight furl to roll him sideways, letting Merlin’s face tip toward the floor just in case he actually was choking. Arthur could feel a slimy wetness against the back of his hand where Merlin’s cheek pressed along with an occasional scrape of clenched teeth, and sincerely hoped that it was saliva, or even vomit, rather than blood.

It lasted long enough for Leon to start pounding at the armory door, demanding that Arthur reply or they would break it down.  He glanced at the still-trembling form in his arms, gradually going limp as the tremors shook themselves free, unknotting Merlin’s limbs from their rictus. He slumped in Arthur’s grasp, breathing ragged. Arthur lowered him to the stone floor, careful that he would not smother himself, before shouting at Leon to stand down. He had to pry Merlin’s fingers from his gambeson, after which they twitched weakly against the floor where Arthur placed the hand. Though he knew that he needed to deal with Leon before the knight decided that Arthur was in danger after all, he remained bent over his knees for a long moment, calming the race of his own heart. Merlin had gone too still on the floor in front of him, but he could see the stutter of his ribcage as he breathed, and the latent twitching here and there along his frame caused by the protest of abused and overexerted muscles.

“Hold, Leon – I’m coming!” Arthur pressed himself to his feet and crossed the armory to unbolt the door.

Leon startled back at the force with which Arthur flung the door open. “Sire, we thought – “

“Only you,” Arthur interrupted. Several other knights littered the hall behind Leon, and Arthur gestured at them to clear the way. “Everyone else out.”

Leon gave both Arthur and the other knights a wary look, but obediently followed Arthur back through the room, past and around the racks of weapons and armor, silent until they reached the back where both Merlin’s practice armor and Arthur’s lay discarded. “Merlin?” He hurried forward and made a cursory search, likely for wounds. “Should I alert the guard?”

“No. Just help me get him to Gaius.” Arthur shook out an old tatty cape folded on one of the shelves and spread it out behind Merlin.

Without waiting to be told, Leon assisted in rolling Merlin onto the cape, and then folding it to cover him and preserve his dignity. Arthur forced himself not to acknowledge the loss of bodily control that they concealed by it. Leon tore off his glove with his teeth and held the backs of his fingers in front of Merlin’s nose to confirm breathing. “What happened, sire?”

Arthur shook his head, because he didn’t know beyond, “He had some sort of a fit.”

“A fit?” Leon frowned. “Was he injured in practice?”

“No more than usual, and no bumps on the head. It happened once before, though, over a year ago.” Arthur knelt down and maneuvered Merlin up until his could get his arms up under Merlin’s and around his chest. “Get his legs.”

Leon lifted, and together they shuffled through the rows of weaponry, careful not to knock Merlin into anything. Thankfully, Leon asked no further questions as they navigated the corridors to the physician’s quarters, a short trip seeing as they were adjacent to the armory. The chambers were empty when they arrived, though, so Arthur tipped his head toward Gaius’s bed, which was the closest clear surface. Merlin was lean and bony, but he wasn’t light by any means.

They hoisted him over onto the old straw mattress and Arthur gestured Leon back when he started at Merlin’s boots. “I’ve got this. Go find Gaius. He’s usually making rounds in the lower town this time of the morning.”

“Yes, sire.” Leon gave Merlin one last, concerned look, and then hurried out, shutting the door behind him.

The silence was oppressive once Leon had gone, and Arthur wondered when he had gotten so used to Merlin’s _noise_ that he had to fight the urge to fidget without it. “Merlin?” Arthur pursed his lips and looked around as if some treatment might be sitting on one of the tables, conveniently labeled with Merlin’s name. Of course, there was nothing, and it would take some time for Leon to find Gaius and walk him back. He shook his head and shrugged off the useless feeling that tended to settle over his shoulders whenever he sat alone in a room that wasn’t his personal chambers. This was ridiculous.

Arthur pulled Merlin’s boots off and tucked the old cloak closer around him before dragging a stool over and reflecting on the absolute travesty of his kingship. He was worried. More worried than a king should be over a servant. It made him angry, but it also made him feel small, and he had no idea what to do with either of those feelings. He never did.

Movement drew his eyes back to the pallet and Arthur abandoned his introspection at the flash of blue visible behind slit eyelids. “Merlin!” He leaned forward and rested his hand on Merlin’s chest. “Gaius is on his way. Can you speak?” The last time this had happened, Arthur had waited half the night for Merlin’s speech to come back to him. He would never admit how absolutely terrifying it had been to watch his manservant struggle to find words, or to recognize Arthur, or remember where they were, and come up blank. “Merlin – do you know where you are?”

Merlin made some kind of gesture, but its meaning was lost on Arthur. His pupils were the size of pins, though, like two ink splatters on a blue canvas, which couldn’t have been good considering the faded sunlight that provided only weak illumination to the room.

Arthur scrubbed his hands through his hair and shoved himself to his feet. He couldn’t abide the inactivity of just sitting there while Merlin stared vaguely through him. After a moment of indecision, he located an old horn cup tipped over amongst the remains of a partially eaten bowl of porridge. Probably Merlin’s breakfast; he was no better at picking up after himself than he was at picking up after Arthur. Another short hunt turned up clean water on the washstand, and Arthur dunked the cup into the ewer to fill it. Merlin seemed to be watching all of this from the other side of the room, but there wasn’t much comprehension in his face as to what he saw. Arthur wanted to make some crude comment about how he’d always known that Merlin really was a halfwit, but he couldn’t make the words come.

Arthur had convinced Merlin to drink most of the water in the cup by the time Gaius returned, looking harried and leaning rather heavily on Leon. Arthur backed away and let the physician take over, hovering with Leon near the door. It was with some relief that Arthur caught the faint sound of Merlin mumbling out proper answers to Gaius’s questions, voice little more than a crackle of whispers. _Do you know where you are? Camelot. And who is standing over there?_ with a nondescript gesture to Arthur. _The King. Arthur. What is the month? …Muin?_ Leon seemed to unwind some as well, and Arthur nodded at him to go ahead and see to his other duties now that the crisis was past.

Once they were alone, Gaius gestured Arthur to join them. “He’s alright now, sire. Just a bit of lingering disorientation.”

Arthur nodded. “He is to take whatever time he needs to recover.”

“Thank you, sire.” Gaius’s hand remained splayed over Merlin’s chest in much the same place as Arthur’s had rested earlier. “I’ve given him a sleeping draught for now; he needs rest more than anything else.”

“Yes.” Arthur let his eyes wander past Gaius and off into the room. “What caused this? He wasn’t always like this, was he?”

“No, sire.” Gaius stood, clearly restless, and busied his hands rearranging the various herbs and tinctures bottled on his work table. “This is an acquired affliction, I’m afraid.”

Arthur nodded. “Was it his magic?”

Too late, it occurred to Arthur that simply blurting that out with no preamble might have been a mistake. The color drained from Gaius’s face at an alarming rate and Arthur had to catch at his arm to guide him to a stool before he sank to the floor right where he stood.

“I’m sorry,” Arthur offered. “I assumed you knew – “

Gaius waved off the apology. “Merlin has only ever used it for good. He’s protected you – “

“I know,” Arthur soothed.

“He doesn’t deserve execution. I’m begging you – “

Again, Arthur cut him off. “I know, Gaius. I have no intention of executing him. It would be rather the opposite of what I swore anyway. Merlin’s not evil. He’s an idiot much of the time, and I’m sure he’s done questionable things with it, but I cannot believe that he means me or Camelot any harm. He could have destroyed us ten times over by now if he really wanted to.”

Gaius appeared to be catching his breath. “How…” He stopped himself, and though it was clearly not the question he wanted to ask, he amended, “You swore a vow?”

Arthur nodded. “To the disir.”

Gaius shook his head. “You swore never to allow magic back into Camelot. To renounce the old religion. Magic _is_ the old religion. The two cannot be unwound.”

“That’s not what I swore.”

Gaius blinked at him. “But…Merlin said – “

“Merlin was not with me.” Arthur pursed his lips. “I bade him wait outside, the fool. He tried to convince me that there was no place for magic in Camelot. Him – a warlock. I didn’t say anything afterwards to disabuse him of the notion – I didn’t want to say anything until I knew why he’d done it.” Arthur glanced around and located a stool for himself now that he could be assured that Gaius wouldn’t expire of fright right in front of him. With his elbows on his knees, Arthur studied his hands carefully. “I still don’t understand. For a while, I thought that was his aim – to ingratiate himself to me and then use me to bring magic back to the land, and as much as I want to believe that what he said to me was some kind of a ploy, he isn’t actually the best liar, not once you know what to look for.” He glanced up to see that yes, Gaius knew Merlin’s tells as well, and understood what Arthur was saying. “Why would he do that, Gaius? He all but bade me condemn him, and everyone like him.”

Gaius started to speak several times, and then finally frowned, mirroring Arthur’s pose. “I think you misunderstand Merlin’s goals, sire. Whatever the druids or prophecy or fate, or anything else demand of him, his aim was never to restore magic. It never died in the first place – it can’t. Freedom might appeal to him on some level, but in practice, he hasn’t any ambition so simple.”

“Or selfish,” Arthur agreed. He thought of Mordred, dead and gone, and how he had almost gone back on his word at returning to find that the disir had supposedly reneged on their bargain. Arthur had thought that his vow was meant to save Mordred and lift the curse from his wound. But Merlin…he’d seemed relieved by it. It had occurred to Arthur later that night that perhaps Merlin denounced magic in order to achieve Mordred’s death. After all, his and Arthur’s assumptions about which choice would lead to which outcome for Mordred had been the same.

“Yes. He never learned to be selfish.” Gaius’s eyebrows twitched and he glanced over his shoulder to ensure that Merlin remained unconscious. When he turned back, he appeared resigned. “I supported your father initially, you know. The purge did not start as an abomination – it was necessary to excise dark magic from the land. It had taken hold of the priestly orders – the priestesses of Avalon had grown drunk on their power; they cared little for consequences anymore. Their greed was souring all of Albion. Sorcerers were used as weapons of war, often against their will, by any two-bit warlord lucky enough to come by one. The dragons were often treated more as slaves than as kin. It was only later that the fervor took hold, and Uther’s hatred and grief overrode his better sense. There is, regrettably, much darkness in the land, sire. Much of it is due to the misuse of magic. Merlin knows this. Power drives good men, and good women, to evil deeds – to corruption and the sins of avarice. He can see this as well as anyone. Much like you, most of Merlin’s experience of magic is of trying to counter the darkness that sorcerers unleash on this kingdom. I believe that might be why he does nothing to upset the balance that you have struck between justice and the persecution of magic users.”

Arthur flinched at the choice of words, but said nothing.

“His most fervent aim has always been to keep you safe and well, sire. It overrides all other concerns. If he advised you to reject the edict of the disir, then it was because he believed to do otherwise would harm you somehow. And that, Merlin could never allow.”

Arthur scoffed. “How would that keep me safe?” He didn’t give Gaius an opportunity to respond though before saying, “You say the druids make demands of him. What claim do they have on him?”

“It is a prophecy, sire. That he is the one they call Emrys, and that he will stand beside the Once and Future King to usher in a golden age of peace and magic.”

Arthur frowned. “He used to call me that. I thought it was rubbish.”

Gaius offered him a small, sincere smile. “You always did think remarkably little of yourself, sire.”

Arthur glanced up sharply and then made an incredulous sound in the back of his throat. “You believe it. You actually think I’m this king of prophecy and that Merlin is some druid harbringer.”

“I do.” Gaius tipped his head to one side, and then back.

“Oh for gods’ sake. And that nonsense you told him about the sword in the stone – you believe that too?”

“Well, no. That part _was_ rubbish.”

Arthur arched an eyebrow.

“I’m relatively certain Merlin made it up.”

“’ _Merlin made it up._ ’ Of course he did. Probably put the damn thing into the stone himself.”

Tellingly, Gaius said nothing.

Arthur sighed in exasperation and smeared a hand over his face. “Right. I shouldn’t be surprised by all of the lies, really. Seems to be the new procedure at court.”

“Merlin had no choice,” Gaius rebuked softly.

“Yes, he did!” Arthur slammed his palm onto the worktop with a crack. A few bottles toppled, and the one that rolled, Gaius caught before it fell from the table’s edge. Arthur ignored it. “He could have told me what he is! I’ve known for years anyway – he could have come clean any time and – “

“He had no reason to believe that!” The volume of Gaius’s voice, breaking thick over Arthur’s brought a tense silence down between them. More quietly now, but no less intense, Gaius snapped, “He believed that you would hate him, at best. At worse, he believed his life at risk. It wasn’t even about him not wanting to die – he was terrified at the thought of leaving _you_ defenseless against magical threats, because like it or not, he is probably the _only_ creature of magic who would bother fighting for you – who would mourn to see you fall. You are _not_ so different from your father, Arthur, and in this one thing at least, you have given _no quarter_. Merlin had no reason – none at all – to think that he could tell you what he is. He had _no reason_ to doubt that you would put him on a pyre. Innocence has never mattered to you before, and you don’t show favoritism – it would be toxic to your reign to make exceptions to the law for those you favor. Whatever you may think you say in private, as king you make no difference between good and evil in magic, only between sorcerer and not. Whatever secret promise you made to the triple goddess, nothing you have done gives any indication that your stance on magic has changed. It is still outlawed. You still execute those found practicing it, no matter why they practice it. You still denounce it. You still tell _Merlin_ that you denounce it, which now that you confess you’ve known about it this long, is _cruel_. You tell him to his face that magic is evil, that sorcerers are inherently evil and should be put to death, all while _knowing_ what he is, and knowing that if it were not for him, you would not still be alive to say anything at all!” He paused and seemed to deflate as he subsided, though with difficulty. “Sire.”

Arthur took a moment with his eyes closed to swallow his temper, and then sucked in a calming breath. “In public, I must maintain – “

“You don’t only say these things in public, and he has no inkling that in private, you think any differently.”

“ _In public_ ,” Arthur bit out, ignoring the interruption. “I must maintain Camelot’s laws and strength in front of her people and our enemies. I must – “

“No.” Gaius snapped, his tone cold. “You are the king. You can say whatever you like, make whatever laws you like, pardon whoever you like. You simply don’t.” He gathered himself with a breath and rose. “Now if you will excuse me, I must tend to my patient. He should not be disturbed with all of this shouting.”

Arthur fumed for a moment at being dismissed in his own castle, but when he rounded on Gaius to say as much, he caught sight of Merlin lying pale and still on Gaius’s bed by the window. The fight leaked from him like water through a sieve. _Please don’t burn me._ Was it really such a shock that those were the first words from Merlin’s mouth when he realized Arthur knew? Such a simple plea, to say so much.

Without thought, Arthur demanded, “Is that what’s been wrong all of this time?” He couldn’t meet Gaius’s gaze when the physician turned around to regard him again. “Have I been that close to losing him?”

Something in Gaius’s outline softened, though Arthur’s eyes remained fixed on the steady rise and fall of Merlin’s chest. “Merlin is loyal to you,” Gaius assured him, voice firm. “That will never waiver.”

“Why, exactly?” Arthur tore his gaze away and directed it toward the door. “He has no reason to be loyal to me, has he?”

“Arthur, you are a good king. A kind king – “

“Apparently, I’m not.” Arthur glanced back toward Gaius and found his face troubled, though he said nothing more to refute Arthur. And that was telling in and of itself. He gestured to Merlin, half hidden behind the protective stance of Gaius’s body. “Is there a treatment for this? Something that will make it easier to bear, or less frequent?”

Gaius swallowed as if uneasy, or perhaps he was just swallowing more harsh retorts. “I have come into some herbs and compounds from beyond the south seas that may help, but I have yet to test them.”

Arthur nodded and then hazarded to ask, “The fit near the cauldron, and the one today – were those the only ones he’s suffered?”

The lines creased out from around Gaius’s eyes, a lessening of the sternness of his regular countenance, which always seemed vaguely disapproving by default. He wore his physician’s face now, the one that heralded unwelcome news. “No, sire. The one at the cauldron was likely the first, but there have been several over the past year. I had hoped that they would be temporary, and that he would heal, but it appears not. They have yet to fade.”

Arthur nodded to acknowledge that. “I had difficulty rousing him after he slipped off the path.”

“It was likely the final straw,” Gaius agreed. “He has suffered multiple head wounds over the years, and other injuries and poisons besides.”

Arthur took a breath, and carefully failed to look back at Merlin as he made his way to the door. Before slipping out, he ordered, “See that he has whatever he needs.” Not that he thought Gaius would do otherwise, but sometimes, Arthur just needed to hear himself say things.

Through the dwindling crack in the door, he heard Gaius reply, “Of course, sire.” Something about the way he said it sounded disappointed.

* * *

Arthur intended to go straight to his chambers, order a bath, and then try to order his thoughts, but instead, he found himself stood in front of the sealed doors of the queen’s chambers. Guinevere. His hand came to rest against the wood of its own accord, grains and knots worn down by sanding, polish, and the brush of hundreds of hands and thousands of days. Smooth. Aged to a dark, rich mahogany that could have been polished, varnished with a coat of shine, but which was not. Simple wear had made the wood gleam like this.

Guinevere had been gone over a year now. The day of it remained stark in his mind, imbued with preternatural clarity: standing at the water’s edge, begging Guinevere with all of his heart to step into the water; the atmosphere redolent with a sourness unbefitting the memory of a goddess, whatever that was; light that he couldn’t dare bring himself to look at because it served as yet more proof that his father had never stood a chance of vanquishing the old religion, and should probably never have tried.

And Guinevere. His beautiful queen. Arthur knew that Merlin blamed himself for her loss, no matter that the only one truly to blame was Morgana. Arthur could have told him that, but he didn’t know how. If anyone should have noticed that the queen was no longer herself, surely it was her husband? If any other blame waited to be laid, it was his. Arthur still couldn’t understand how he had missed it. His Guinevere was a radiant, kind woman – how could he have failed to see the cunning that slipped in? The contempt? How could he not notice that she was gone, however steady her body stood before him day after day after day – he should have seen the manipulations. There were signs. Tyr Seward was only the first. Gwen was compassionate; she would never have agreed with executing the boy. Arthur should have seen as much. There were plenty of things that Arthur should have found suspicious, but instead chose to ignore. After so many betrayals, so many instances of what it looked like when a loved one lied to him, turned on him, surely he should have seen it in her. Or rather, that it was not her at all.

“You would have noticed,” he told her out loud, voice soft in the perpetual twilight of the corridor. He let his fingers press and skate over the wood of her door as if he could use it to recall the feel of her skin. “If it were me. You could always see so clear.” He thought about the tomb beyond those doors, so much like the one Uther had made of Ygraine. He wondered, briefly, if her things still smelt of her, or if he would find only dust inside.

Footsteps down the corridor broke his reverie and Arthur retreated before his own guards. The thought of a bath no longer appealed; it would just grow cold without Merlin working his literal magic to keep it the perfect temperature.

* * *

 

tbc


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

 

 

_“You have returned.”_

_“Is your decision made?”_

_Arthur struggled to swallow, and hoped that the crease of his mouth didn’t betray the faint nausea stirring in his gut at what he was about to do. “It is.” He pressed his mouth flat, teeth clenched, and lowered his eyes briefly, just a flicker as he reset his feet on hard, damp bedrock. This was not a battle; he could not approach it as one. His voice came out gruff when he said, “I cannot do as you ask.”_

_A moment of stillness, and then a severe voice – the crone? – cautioned, “Consider carefully, Arthur Pendragon. This is your last chance to save all that is dear to you.”_

_“It will not come again.” The mother, that one. Maybe._

_Arthur was glad he had ordered Merlin to stay outside for this. It was not his proudest moment, and in truth, he still didn’t know for certain that he would be able to carry this through. Mordred did not deserve to die for him – for Arthur. What price was some lip service and a loosening of minor magics when compared to a good man’s life – a life that Arthur now bore as debt? He regarded all of them from the corners of his eyes, as if looking straight upon them might sway him one way or another against his will. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, parched. “I’ve seen too much…” He breathed, and realized that his own mannerisms mirrored Merlin’s the night before: the denial of his own words betrayed by the minute shaking of his own head - the forced quality of his voice as though his own throat tried repeatedly to close itself against him. “I’ve seen…the evil that magic can do.”_

_“Have you not also seen the good?” The maiden, that time._

_Arthur nodded, recalling one of a very few times when he had known magic was being performed, and seen goodness in it instead of violence or war or hate. “A blue orb,” he confessed, “leading me to safety.”_

_“And still,” the crone said, “you would denounce it?”_

_Arthur shook his head, the motion once again an unwitting betrayal of his own hidden thoughts. But that was only one example in a sea of thousands of misdeeds. He felt as if something were stuck in his throat, too big to swallow and too far down to cough back out. “My manservant is a sorcerer. And even he cautions me against agreeing to your demands.” He looked up, and where before he had seen pretenders to the old religion, his eyes seemed to pick out something else now. “Why would he do that?” he demanded, taking an involuntary step forward. “He could have had freedom, and instead, he tells me that magic_ _has no place in Camelot - that_  he _has no place._ ”

_“Camelot was built of magic,” the mother counseled._

_“The stones are imbued with magic.” The crone._

_“The ground is saturated with magic.” The maiden._

_“Its walls were raised with magic.” The mother again._

_Arthur’s gaze darted from one to another of them as they traded off, as if speaking the thoughts of one being from out of three different mouths._

_“And yet you would separate it from its foundation?”_

_“Raze its walls.”_

_“Paint the flagstones with the blood of your allies.”_

_"Betrayer."_

_"You are your father's son."_

_“No!” Arthur shouted. “I don’t want – ” He looked between them each in turn. “I don’t want a purge. I am not my father – I don’t_ want _that.”_

_“Then your choice is clear,” the crone told him._

_“Is it?” Arthur demanded. “Why, then, is a sorcerer telling me to refuse you? If anyone knows about magic, about its place and value, then it should be him. Shouldn’t it? Why would a sorcerer want me to continue refusing magic unless it_ should _be refused?”_

_“Emrys has lost his way.”_

_Arthur’s eyes fell on the crone. “What does that mean?”_

_It was the mother, however, who stepped forward to answer. And it appeared that she did not do so as the mouthpiece of the goddess. Instead, she pushed the hood from her head, revealing the face of a woman of middle age, lightly lined and kind. “Much was ruined when Uther enacted the purge. Much was changed that should not have been. Many futures which should have been set, were destroyed. You were not meant to learn his ways. You were not meant to have love for him, or to know him as a father. You are poisoned by your love of him, and rent by the knowledge of his cruelty. It cannot be changed.” She shook her head, a sad gesture that spoke of lost things that could never be recovered. “Your servant…he was not meant to bear the burden of your destiny alone. He was not meant to fear or hate his magic, or to fear_ you. _He was not meant to hide his goodness. His path was scattered when Uther sought to purge the lands of his kind. His only chance for survival laid in secrets. And secrets can only fester. There was no one to guide him, Arthur Pendragon. No one to teach him what he is – what he is_ meant for – _that he, and what he is, is_ good. _There were only those who could advise from the place of their own fear and failure, or from their own ambition and greed, or from hate, or from their own want of vengeance. They did not all mean him ill. But they did more damage than they know. Your destinies have diverged, and that should not have been allowed to happen. Secrets and fear…guilt and shame…all of these things have driven a wedge between you. Your futures grow sour. The darkness gathers. He can see it, but he has been given no tools to fight back against it, and it has worn him thin. He is lost, and he is struggling alone, without direction. If destiny is to be restored, then it must be you, Arthur Pendragon, who leads the way forward now. You must open and light the way, else all is lost.” She smiled then, a gentle thing, very much as Arthur imagined a mother should look. “Do not blame him for his failings, Arthur Pendragon. Your servant has suffered much, beneath your notice. He knows no other way.”_

 _Arthur winced, because yes, justly or not, Merlin has too often fallen beneath his notice. “I know what you want me to choose. But I don’t know if I can. I haven’t always listened to Merlin, and I’ve seen what comes of that. He has never –_ never _– led me false. You are asking me to go against the only man whose faith in me has never faltered. I trust him with my life. You, I don’t know at all.”_

_The mother nodded. “You speak of going against him, and yet to follow his advice is also to go against him. How would you reconcile that, Arthur Pendragon?”_

_Arthur inhaled, but found that he had no answer to give to that. He allowed the air to escape again, unused._

_“You care for him.”_

_“Yes.” Arthur didn’t even hesitate. “He’s a good man.”_

_“You trust him.”_

_Arthur nodded. “He’s as true to me as any knight.”_

_“You embrace him.”_

_Arthur furrowed his brow. “Yes,” he said again, but it was slower this time – more cautious._

_“Even though he is magic.”_

_Arthur blinked. He wasn’t certain as to what gave it away, exactly, but it struck him that the mother had not been speaking to him as a woman after all. Arthur had been speaking to the goddess the whole time. Finally, as though the word were a sigh of air escaping beneath a lessening weight, Arthur replied, “Yes.”_

_The mother nodded. “Then it seems to me, Arthur Pendragon, that you made this choice long ago. All that remains is for you to speak it.”_

_They regarded each other for what seemed a moment stopped in time, and indeed, when Arthur glanced to one side, he saw a droplet suspended in the air beneath the tip of a jagged rock from which it had fallen. His breath blew out in the chill air, fogged, and stilled. In his ears, his heart beat a drum call like a long, slow march to war. He looked at the mother, at her kind and simple face, and then at the crone and the maiden where they stood in frozen silence behind her._

_The mother’s voice pulled his attention back, and a rush of sound returned with the movement of time. “What is your choice, Arthur Pendragon?”_

_Arthur straightened where he stood, and drew his breath to respond. It didn’t even occur to him that the choice had ceased to be about Mordred’s life, or even about magic at all._

* * *

“George! Stop.”

The temporary servant paused in rearranging the wardrobe. “Yes, sire?”

Arthur pushed away his picked-over breakfast and stood. “Look, you’re an excellent servant.”

George puffed up. “Sire! Thank you, sire!”

“Right.” Arthur struggled to keep a straight face. “And I understand that there is normally a certain way to…arrange things…a proper way…which Merlin does not follow.”

“Sire, I am certain that your manservant simply needs an example to guide him. A template, if you will. I would be most pleased to offer my assistance – ”

“Be that as it may,” Arthur allowed, choosing his words carefully. “I prefer his arrangements be left as they are.”

George blinked, glanced at the cracked ewer filled with pairs of socks rolled up in balls that he had pulled from the wardrobe, and then blinked at Arthur some more as if he couldn’t comprehend the notion.

Arthur nodded as if he were talking to a simpleton, or a tiny child holding a freshly sharpened sword. “It’s alright, George. Just set it back where you found it and close the door, and then you won’t have to look at it.”

“But sire – ” George frowned at the overflowing ewer with such consternation that it might have held the most terrible truths of the universe.

Arthur bobbed his eyebrows. “Yes, I know. But just the same, put it back. Otherwise, I’ll have to listen to Merlin complaining that he can’t find anything, and then I’ll have no socks at all. Just…put it back.”

George returned the ewer of socks to the wardrobe as if interring bones in an ossuary. He was still frowning at the closed wardrobe later, between scoops of ash as he cleaned out the fireplace, and Arthur left him to it. He wasn’t sure that the ewer would actually survive being left alone with George, royal edict or no. So many harmless accidents could befall an already cracked ewer.

The corridors were still mostly empty this time of morning; Arthur wouldn’t be awake at all yet if he hadn’t been set upon by the most boisterously proper servant in the five kingdoms. It was impossible to sleep through the pleased little noises of candlesticks being polished by a man who loves brass the way normal people love spouses. The carefully folded napkin packed with sausages made a warm bundle in Arthur’s palm as he strode through the halls. George could at least be counted on to bring far too much food to the king’s breakfast table, which meant that there was plenty leftover for Merlin. Contrary to popular belief, it did occur to Arthur that his desire to feed up his manservant was not exactly normal, but he wasn’t about to stop. It was a comfortable habit for him, and he knew that while Merlin would feel obligated to refuse many kinds of gifts that Arthur might try to bestow (the clothing incident stood out in his mind), food would always be welcome.

He still didn’t know what the big deal was about the clothing, though; Merlin had maybe two pairs of trousers and three shirts at any given time, and none of them were in any way suitable for Camelot winters - not even that awful brown coat thing. Arthur understood that he couldn’t afford more because he split most of his wages between Gaius and his mother, so why not let Arthur buy him some new things? It was hardly befitting the manservant of the king to run around looking like a pauper anyway. If anything, giving clothes to Merlin was a gift to _Arthur_.

He resolved to try that argument, since winter was coming soon, and Merlin still needed more suitable attire for it.

Arthur passed the armory and the doors leading out to the practice field, still barred against the night, then climbed the short flight of stairs to the physician’s quarters, his mind consumed with plots to properly clothe his ridiculous manservant. The earliness of the hour escaped his notice since he wasn’t used to being about before most people woke, and he pushed open the door to Gaius’s chambers without thinking at all that he might be disturbing anyone.

It was the chill that stopped him cold on the threshold. Arthur went still like a hunter in the wood, and took in the sight of a few pitiful embers slowly dying in the fireplace. None of the candles were lit, and there was too little dawn light coming through the windows to illuminate much. Something felt off; he had not simply walked in before the inhabitants woke. Arthur couldn’t have said what was wrong, exactly, but he could feel it in his bones. He dropped his hand from the door latch and stepped cautiously forward, feeling along the floor with his feet, his ears straining to catch any sound that might reveal the situation to him. About halfway through the room, it occurred to him that the quiet was what had struck him so hard in the doorway. Gaius snored, rather horribly. But it was completely silent in the room now.

Arthur peered into the darkness, located a candle, and took it to the dying fire to coax a flame to its wick. The little flare of light was enough for Arthur to see that Gaius’s bed was empty and unslept in. He also saw what looked like a collection of herbs abandoned in the middle of being made into medicines on the work table, an upended bowl of freshly ground powder, and a candlestick knocked on its side, half melted in a pool of its own dried wax. Arthur stepped around the edge of the bench and stopped, forcing his heartbeat to slow and his breathing to remain even. Once collected, he knelt down and pressed his fingers to the cool skin of Gaius’s neck, then held them in front of the old man’s face to feel for absent breath. He sat back on his heels afterwards, just breathing, his blood thumping gently in his ears. It must have been sudden, then. Arthur hoped it had been painless, at least. He looked down at the bundle of sausages still cradled in the crook of his elbow. Of all the things that threatened to break his composure…

Arthur set the candle up on the worktable and the sausages next to it, dashed angry hands across his eyes, and then looked up. He nearly jumped out of his own skin when he picked out another dim shape of a man crouched on the floor several feet away, on the other side of Gaius’s body, staring at him. The flicker of the candle flame highlighted a thin slouched figure leaning against the wall with his knees drawn up far too close to his ears, hands open and lying palms-up on the floor near his hips. “Merlin?” Arthur’s heart stuttered in a rapid staccato that clenched up his chest and threatened to take his breath as the first thought that crossed his mind was that he might be looking at a second body, and this scene not one of natural death at all.

But Merlin stirred, the motion stiff as if he hadn’t moved in hours. His eyes dropped from Arthur back down to Gaius, and Arthur noticed that he was clad only in his sleeping clothes, feet bare, face blank. Surely he hadn’t been there all night, sitting vigil? “His heart stopped,” Merlin told him, the calm chilling. “I couldn’t fix it.”

That emotionless rasp of voice propelled Arthur into a relief of motion. He found a thick quilt on Gaius’s bed and brought it over to wrap around Merlin’s shivering frame. “You’ll catch your death of cold,” he admonished, and then winced. Rather than apologize for the callous wording, he urged Merlin up, pulling him out of the tight, unyielding ball he had made of himself on the floor, and walked him to a chair near the fire where he would no longer be able to see Gaius. After stuffing a few fresh logs onto the fire and making sure that they caught, he crouched with a hand on Merlin’s shoulder, trying and failing to catch his eye. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

At Merlin’s sluggish nod, Arthur squeezed the sharp jut of bone and sinew beneath his hand, and withdrew to locate a servant who could alert the steward.

Once alone in the hall, message sent, Arthur took a brief moment for himself, leant up against the cold stone wall beside the door with his head tipped back to stare at the ceiling. In spite of knowing Gaius all of his life, of trusting his health to the man and accepting his knowledge and advice, Arthur had not been all that close to him. Gaius had been too loyal to Uther, and carried too many of the former king’s secrets whether it were still wise to do so or not. Arthur respected him and kept him as a member of the royal household and of his advisory council, but he didn’t necessarily trust him – not about everything. Gaius had lied about and hidden too much for that; he had committed too many atrocities by Uther's side, against his own conscience probably, and yet the guilt had not destroyed him as it should have done to a better man. He could forgive Gaius, though, for being too foolishly loyal to question his actions. However, Arthur never thought of Gaius as a friend, not even as a role model. Certainly, he could not see the man as much of a father figure, not to Arthur at least. But this morning, walking into that room, reminded him of sitting vigil beside his own father, a hearkening back to the days when loved ones would guard the body from predators through the dark watches of the night. Arthur had not stood that vigil alone, for all that he’d been the only living thing in the room with his father’s body; he hadn’t known that Merlin was sat outside the doors waiting all night too. The fact remained that someone had sat it with him, all the same. It made Arthur's chest hurt to know that Merlin had sat here in the dark for hours, truly alone, watching the still body of the only father figure he’d ever known grow cold. _I couldn’t fix it._

Arthur shook his head and took several deep breaths to collect himself, to reestablish his calm and school his demeanor back to something more useful. It wouldn’t help Merlin to dwell on how groggy Arthur noticed him to be when he all but dragged him off the floor and toward the fire. Or on how Gaius must have plied him with another sleeping draught the night before, a strong one to last into the morning like this, to be certain that he got the rest he needed. It certainly wouldn’t help anyone for Arthur to realize that Merlin must have fought to wake up when Gaius fell, limbs heavy and uncoordinated from the potion, desperate to help him. How he had probably fallen down the steps from his little tower room, to judge by the livid bruises that Arthur had seen standing out on Merlin’s collar bone and forearms. The way he likely stumbled and used the shelves to pull himself upright, knocking over the normally neat stacks of books which were now scattered on the floor. How he must have struggled not to let the draught pull him back under, and felt it sucking at his strength, fumbling his fingers on the lids of jars and bottles of lifesaving medicines as Gaius’s life left him. How in the end, that sleeping draught probably did prevent Merlin from saving him, because Arthur knew that Merlin had the training both herbal and magical to do something about a seized heart muscle. And Gaius was still dead.

Footsteps down the corridor put an end to Arthur’s thoughts. He pinched the bridge of his nose, high up where his thumb slipped a bit toward the corner of one eye, and then straightened. There was no time for this; he needed to be the king now. His court physician and one of his oldest advisors was dead. This needed to be dealt with.

Arthur ducked back into the physician’s chambers and waved the steward toward the body before going to stand near Merlin, who hadn’t moved from the chair where Arthur had put him. Leon followed soon after, which Arthur should have anticipated once news reached him of the unexpected death of one of Arthur’s councilors. It did startle him a bit though, which Leon was kind enough not to mention. Because it was expected of him, Arthur told him, “You’ll lead the knights in training this afternoon. I must…handle this.”

“Of course, sire.”

Arthur glanced to where the steward and two women were checking the body. Death and cause had to be confirmed officially, something that Gaius himself normally did. He heard chainmail clink softly behind him, and looked over his shoulder to find Leon knelt in front of Merlin’s bowed head, his expression somber. Before Leon could say anything, Arthur spun and insisted, “That’s not necessary.”

Leon twitched in surprise at Arthur’s sharp tone, but recovered admirably. “Sire, it’s protocol to speak with witnesses to the death. We must confirm the events.” He looked at Merlin in covert apology, though, for the impersonal words.

Merlin interrupted whatever Arthur might have said to try to spare Merlin the need to speak of it. “It’s fine.” His voice was low and rough. “I know you have to ask.”

“Later, then,” Arthur insisted. “Once you’ve recovered.”

“Arthur, I’m fine.” Merlin glanced up at him, and it disturbed Arthur to find reddened but dry eyes, bruised from exhaustion, meeting his own. “You don’t need to protect me.”

Arthur tried to make another denial, but his breath huffed out without words at the look on Merlin’s face. He realized abruptly that he was a terrible friend, if he could be called Merlin’s friend at all, because he couldn’t stand the thought of listening to Merlin recount what had happened last night. It was less that the whole thing was tragic and more that he would have to listen to the story of it coming out in the same flat, dead voice that Merlin had used when Arthur found him on the floor. Merlin was not supposed to sound like that. Not ever. A better man would stay and offer support, even if all the support entailed was a silent presence propped against the wall. Arthur merely nodded, lips pressed together in a sickly line, and turned away. He could feel Merlin’s stare piercing him from behind as he moved out of the room, except that when Arthur glanced back from the threshold, Merlin wasn’t paying him any mind at all. So it was his own guilt, then, stabbing him in the back like that. Somehow, that seemed more fitting.

* * *

The day passed in an absolute blur. Arthur attended council and confirmed the rumors of Gaius’s passing, which led to a long silence and then an unexpectedly vicious discussion of how best to fill the vacancy. Arthur grew tired of listening to them squabble after a while and ordered them to move on to the next topic, amidst their protests. After that, he inspected the grain stores, met with the steward to discuss holiday preparations and staffing, reviewed the state of the royal coffers, and spent far too long grooming his own horse in the rare peace afforded by the royal stables. On any other day, he may have saddled up and dragged Merlin out for a ride, laughing at escaping the royal guard and any number of knights who tried to rush out after them in horror at their king riding about the forest alone with no one to protect him but his bumbling, mouthy servant. The air was perfect for it – sky mostly clear, breeze soft and lazy, sun bestowing a lingering warmth to tease them through trees only half-bare in a blaze of yellow and orange, with leaf litter crunching in drifts underfoot. He could have gone anyway, perhaps taken a crossbow and a few of the more hunt-savvy guardsmen, but he had no desire to ride out with anyone else when any reason he gave for the excursion would only be an excuse to escape the castle walls for a few hours.

Arthur returned to his rooms late and in a bad mood. He didn’t know what to do with other people’s grief, so he elected to let Merlin have his space even though it worried Arthur to think that he might be alone in the physician’s chambers, in a room too empty to feel comfortable anymore. Surely Gwaine would be with him, though. Someone. Merlin had friends, even if he never chose to lean on any of them. That was his own fault though, wasn’t it? Arthur couldn’t be held responsible for Merlin never letting anyone close enough to offer comfort when he was hurting. It wasn’t like magic drove a wedge between him and the rest of the world, and magic – the laws on it – were the only thing that Arthur had done to hamper him being entirely open like anyone else. Surely the rest of it was Merlin’s own fault.

The door slammed in Arthur’s wake and he threw his gloves vaguely at a table against the wall. There was a cold supper sitting on his table, neatly laid out, and for a moment, Arthur directed his gratitude at George. The meal was reasonably sized, though – nothing excessive. Merlin-sized. Arthur paused beside his chair and looked at the food for a moment. Eventually his eyes focused past the plate, and he realized that Merlin hadn’t dropped off the meal and left; he was sitting on the floor in front of the cold fireplace, his back to Arthur, legs crossed on the bearskin fur rug that laid near the hearth.

“What are you doing?” Arthur demanded.

Merlin jerked, and seemed to realize that he was supposed to be lighting the fire. He moved his hand toward the wood, then caught himself and reached for the flint instead.

Arthur strode up behind him and snatched the flint from his hand. “You shouldn’t be here. Don’t you have…arrangements or something? George can handle this. Just…take some time off.”

“I’d rather not.” Merlin unfolded himself from the floor and turned, gaze averted, to gently extract the flint from Arthur’s fingers. “There isn’t anywhere else to prepare him.”

“Prep – oh.” Arthur stepped back and let Merlin kneel again to strike at the flint. He had noticed several of the women who perform death rites walking across the courtyard when he escaped to the stables. Even though the old religion was technically outlawed, even Uther had not brought himself to interfere with them. Perhaps he had let them be because every appearance they made signaled another death of the old ways, as if each passing further cemented his hold and power over a new, featureless, magicless land.

It was more likely, after all that Arthur had learned over the past year from studying the records that Geoffrey had squirreled away since the purge, that Uther simply feared to cross them. As much as he stood in opposition to magic and claimed to reject the superstition of it, to have no fear of it, Uther had seen magic and the old religion. He knew its power. He had conceived a son by it, and killed a wife in the process. If anyone knew better than to challenge a death that comes from the old ways, it was Uther. He wondered briefly if the purge were really more of a petty vengeance than any serious attempt at eradication, vindictive or not. He wondered if Uther blamed himself so fiercely that he had to enact the purge to externalize it, to keep from tearing himself apart with it, or if he truly didn’t think that it was his fault at all that his wife died, not even a little, for dabbling in magic in the first place.

Merlin had finished with the fire and was working at the laces of Arthur’s tunic by the time he wrenched himself from his thoughts. Up close, he could see the strain of the day in Merlin’s features. Without any idea of his own intent, he reached up and closed his fingers over Merlin’s where they fought with the knotted ties, stilling them. “You don’t have to work just to stay here for a while. I’m not entirely heartless, you know.”

After a tense moment wherein Arthur thought that Merlin might simply shake him off and go back to picking at the laces, Merlin nodded and slipped his fingers out from beneath Arthur’s. “I know.” He glanced up, one side of his mouth curling in a sad attempt at cheer. “You brought me sausages.” The curl faded and flattened back out, drawing Merlin’s gaze back down as well. “Thank you.”

It was so sincere, so weighted – too much so for a soggy napkin wrapped around a handful of sausage links gone cold with congealed grease. Arthur inhaled and let it out harshly, a sigh gone wrong. “We need to talk.”

“I know.” Merlin smoothed the wrinkles from the material at Arthur’s shoulders and stepped back, angling himself toward the door in a way that made Arthur think he didn’t realize he was doing it. “Gaius said something last night… I wasn’t awake all of the way. He said he’d explain in the morning, but…” He jerked his head to one side, a shrug without moving his shoulders. “Well.” Merlin moved backwards again; it was just a half-step, but it could have been the length of the kingdom for the distance that it put between them. His chest expanded, fell, and expanded again, a deliberate bid to work himself into saying whatever was on his mind. Finally, he swallowed, fingers twitching at his side, and said, “You know, don’t you.”

Arthur wanted to close the space between them, though not to touch, nor for anything else so banal. It was simply the kind of conversation that screamed of intimacy. It should be private. It should be close. And there Merlin was, four feet and the whole of the earth away from him. “Yes,” he replied, forcing himself to stillness. “I know about your magic.” It was some cruel fate that made them live this moment over again. “You don’t remember?”

Merlin shook his head, blinking rapidly as if he’d got a bit of dust in his eyes. “I remember being chivvied around the practice yard like a straw dummy.” There was bit of a laugh in there, at least. “And the armory; you couldn’t get the straps undone.” He tapped his fingers to his arm where the leather had dug up under it. “But there’s nothing after that.” He started nodding to himself, and Arthur itched to block him somehow from taking any more of the tiny, shuffling steps backwards that he’d been sneaking into the pauses in the conversation. “What…” It was just an exhalation, clearly ill timed to fall right at the end of his air, and he sucked in a fresh breath to ask again, more clearly, “What are you going to do with me?”

Arthur wished that Merlin would look at him, or at anything in the room with them other than the door that he seemed to be keeping in his periphery. He needed to diffuse this – jolt Merlin from his prey mindset. They would get nowhere if all Merlin could focus on was escape routes. “Feed you dinner, for starters.” He watched Merlin freeze, twitch, and then stutter his gaze up to Arthur, incredulous. Finally. “You didn’t bring nearly enough, though. I’ll have to ring George to bring us a proper meal, which means he’s going to try rearranging my socks again. And I’m not dealing with him this time – you can defend your own ewer.”

The snort that Merlin let out at that sounded pitifully wet, and seemed to surprise Merlin as much as it did Arthur. He was making faces that implied he wanted to smile but couldn’t be sure that he should, or that it was appropriate, or that Arthur was serious. “I have magic, and you’re worried about socks?”

Arthur shrugged. “The socks seem more of an immediate danger.” He grinned briefly, heartened to see Merlin unconsciously mirror the expression, and then sobered. “I owe you an apology. I should have told you before now that I knew.”

The mirth melted away from Merlin’s face like wax turning liquid and smooth beneath the flame of a candle. “Why didn’t you?”

“I suppose…I was angry.” Arthur hazarded a step forward, gratified when Merlin merely let him approach. “I didn’t know how to trust you anymore, at first – your motives. And I felt a bit of a fool, honestly. There was a sorcerer living right there under my nose, in my own household, and I didn’t know?”

“You thought I was manipulating you?”

“No,” Arthur replied, startled to hear the conviction in his own voice. “I knew you weren’t undermining me, or trying to harm any of us. You didn’t have any sort of agenda that I could see, other than the obvious." _Saving us._ "But you're an idiot, so...”

“I was lying to you.”

Arthur nodded. “Yes, you were. And I know why. I know…if I hadn’t figured it out on my own, the way I did, and you had ever told me…” He felt sick at the thought of baring this truth, but Merlin deserved it. And so did Arthur himself, for that matter. It needed to be said. “I would have reacted badly.” He smeared his tongue against the inside of his lips as if he could taste the admission sitting foul in his mouth, and recalled that long ago lunge with a sword across his father's freshly dead body. “I might have done something rash. Something I couldn’t take back afterwards.”

Merlin nodded, bottom lip caught in his teeth, and exhaled as if shedding a weight that no one had known he was carrying. His eyes shone but didn’t spill, nostrils flared, and after a bare moment too long meeting Arthur’s gaze, he let his eyes fall, lashes lowered to brush the skin above his cheekbones. He seemed to weigh the risk of saying something more, but the silence won out, and he dipped his head in a short kind of bow before making his way to the door.

“Merlin.”

For a moment, Arthur didn’t think he’d stop, but his body slowed, molasses dripping down a sloped surface, until he washed up against the door with the pads of three fingers resting on the wood near the latch. Slowly, his head followed the same line and he pressed his forehead into the plank above them. After that, he didn’t seem to have any momentum left, and just stayed there with his eyes fallen loosely shut.

Arthur crossed the room softly and pulled at him for a moment, but if anything Merlin pushed himself harder into the door. “Come on. I’m the king; I can’t be bothered with worrying about you all night, so you’re just going to have to stay here.” He hooked a bicep and pried him away at an angle. “For once, just do what you’re told, and come sit at the table, all right?”

But Merlin shook his head rather more violently than the situation called for. “I have to make deliveries in the morning, and I haven’t mixed all of the medicines for it yet.”

Arthur started to tell him that one more day wouldn’t matter, but a somewhat upsetting suspicion stopped him. “Did you spend all day making Gaius’s rounds?”

Merlin swayed and bumped his shoulder into the door again in an effort to simply leave the conversation. “I had to; there’s no one else.” He sounded beyond exhausted in that moment. “Most of them can’t afford food, let alone medicine. He’s all they have.” He paused, and then corrected lowly, “Had.”

When Merlin thumped his hand at the door yet again, fumbling for the latch, Arthur forcibly hauled him back and steered him toward the bed.

Merlin went mostly without protest, though he seemed a bit confused at his own passivity. “What are you doing?”

“Is there a list of patients that Gaius sees every day?”

“I left it on the worktop. Arthur, what – ”

They ran into the bed and Arthur all but toppled him into it. “Good. I’ll get the physician from the lower town to cover that for a few days. Rupert, Herbert, whatever his name is. With the nose mole.”

Merlin flailed and tried to push himself back to his feet. “They can’t afford – ”

“They won’t have to,” Arthur soothed, shoving him back down with little difficulty. “I’ll cover his expenses from the royal coffers. It’s only temporary, until we work out what to do in the long term. I can’t have you running yourself any more stupid than you already are.”

Merlin flopped back against a pillow and panted in exhaustion, unresisting in spite of himself as Arthur tugged his boots off. It was no wonder he could barely keep his eyes open now that he’d gone down. He’d barely slept the night before, and was likely still recovering from what happened in the armory. Then he’d gone and spent the day covering for Gaius, and if Arthur knew him at all, he’d also seen to a good number of the chores that Arthur normally set him, including mucking out the stables. He hadn’t thought about it, but he knew that the stable boys only mucked the stalls every other day, and today marked the third day in a row that he’d gone down to find everything clean and the hay fresh. As he considered that, Arthur pulled at Merlin’s neckerchief, braced for the sight of the bruises that he had left, unforgivingly, in his drunkenness. What he did not expect were the series of reddened scratch marks where Merlin had apparently been itching at himself harder than was healthy. Arthur turned the scrap of cloth over in his hand and picked out a bit of straw trapped in the folds with a sigh. “You’re an idiot, Merlin.”

Without opening his eyes, Merlin mumbled, “I’ll do better, promise.”

“You’ve done enough already. Rest now.” Arthur folded the neckerchief and set it on the nightstand with a frown.

Meanwhile, Merlin sank into the mattress, limbs tossed wherever Arthur had left them, his chest settling into a more even cadence of breathing. Without really thinking about it, Arthur perched on the bed near his thigh, jostling him a bit, and took in the worn-out sight of him. Arthur was starting to think that maybe he didn’t really know Merlin at all, in spite of how similar they were. The thought disturbed him far less than he expected.

Careful not to wake him, Arthur tugged at the knot of Merlin’s shabby old belt, and slid it out from under him. That, too, went on the nightstand, coiled like a thin garden snake. Arthur reached over him and pulled the other half of the thick coverlet across the bed to enfold him like a camp roll, patting it down to be certain that none of the chill of the room would find its way in. He probably could have led a parade past the bed at that point; Merlin’s eyes were already moving beneath their lids.

Into the quiet, amidst the soft hush of breath and the crackle of wood burning in the hearth, Arthur whispered, “I still can’t quite fathom you out.” He smoothed the rich downy fabric over Merlin’s chest. “You deserve a better king than me, I think. A better man.” Before he could second guess the impulse, Arthur stood, but he leaned back over immediately and pressed his lips to Merlin’s forehead, just for a moment. He withdrew then, but only a hair’s breadth so that he could speak. “I want to be the king you think I am. But I’m not as strong as you, Merlin. I’m not good like that.” He touched his forehead to Merlin’s long enough to close his eyes and admit, “I hope you never figure that out.” Then he straightened, tugged his shirt back into place, and went to eat his cold supper.

* * *

_“I know you will make me proud, as you always have.”_

_Arthur pawed at the blood spreading across his father’s nightshirt. When he looked away toward the body of the assassin, it was not a circus knife thrower that he saw on the ground. It was Merlin, his eyes clouded and unseeing._

_“You will be a great king.”_

_“No!” Arthur tore his eyes from the sight and fixed them back onto his father. “I’m not ready.”_

_“You – you have been ready for some time, Arthur.”_

_“No, I need you.” Arthur looked up again, across the room, at the betrayal that he kept close to his own breast. But it was the old man now, Dragoon, with his long beard spilling white over the floor, ends stained rust where they met the blood spilled from the chest of Arthur’s father. Shaking, incensed, Arthur screamed, “Stop wearing his face!” The force of his words wracked both his own body and his father’s._

_The assassin smiled back, grin set in the right features this time. Merlin blinked. “You cannot be a great king and make him proud at the same time.”_

* * *

Arthur jolted awake, the smell of his father’s blood filling his nostrils, and clawed his way to sitting up, chest heaving in the dark. It couldn’t have been more than an hour or two since he laid down; no lights shone outside his window this late. Listening carefully, however, he could pick out the sound of a march of feet somewhere nearby, close on the battlements that encircled the castle. It soothed him after a moment. He looked down beside him at Merlin snuffling gently about, squirming to recover the warmth lost from Arthur upsetting all of their blankets.

A tattered collection of deep breaths brought Arthur’s heartbeat back to a manageable level, and he laced his fingers together over the back of his neck, holding himself in place, grounding himself the way he often did unthinking to Merlin, as if scruffing him like an unruly puppy. Arthur hummed to himself, eyes shut against the images from his dream, because he knew – he knew, he knew, he _knew_ – that Dragoon was just a face that Merlin wore sometimes to hide behind. He also knew that Merlin couldn’t have meant it – to kill the king, Arthur’s father. He’d been so earnest in the charcoal hut, telling Arthur that all he wanted was to be permitted to live his life in the same peace that everyone else enjoyed. It didn’t make sense for him to deliberately sabotage himself by sending Uther to his grave, especially not when the king was already dying. Something went wrong. Arthur remembered grinning across his father’s renewed body to find his expression mirrored on the idiot old man. There had been no guile there; he was certain of it. Whatever age skin Merlin wore, he still couldn’t really lie to save his life. But all it took was a moment for Arthur to forget that and try to run him through. He was so glad, afterwards, that Merlin hadn’t let him.

Gods, this wasn’t even a new nightmare; Arthur had been having it for years now. He was thankful that it had ended this time before he took up his sword and used the pommel to beat the hideous grin from the wrinkled face, mangling the body sprawled in a pile on top of his father’s so that by the end, he had no idea which of them he was actually trying harder to destroy.

Arthur shook himself and made a point of tucking the blankets back around Merlin so that he settled again, then carefully slipped out of bed. He wouldn’t sleep any more tonight, not after that, but he couldn’t make too much of a racket without disturbing Merlin. Of course, he was the damn king, and it shouldn’t have mattered what Merlin wanted or needed. Arthur still crept across the room, unwilling to make too much noise. He managed to get himself dressed again, somewhat, and a small smile escaped him when he opened the wardrobe to find the sock ewer missing. A basket sat in its place, his socks unrolled from their balls and…ironed, apparently. Arthur picked at one, brows climbing his forehead at the perfectly straight creases aligned just along the seam. It was kind of impressive, actually. He grinned, chose a thicker pair, and shut the door. Merlin was going to have kittens when he saw it.

It was full night outside when Arthur stepped from the main doors of the great hall. The courtyard was dark, the watch fires doing little to illuminate the space. Several guards perked up at his appearance, some quietly alarmed, though whether it was because the king might disapprove of their performance or because they were worried that something was wrong, he couldn’t tell. Arthur gestured them back to their posts and descended the stairs halfway, choosing a stair at random to fold himself down on. The guards still seemed uneasy at his presence, but he ignored them. After all, he supposed that having the king appear in the middle of the night, half dressed in his stocking feet to sit on the steps in the chill of autumn, was a little bit alarming.

Leon showed up just as quickly as Arthur expected he would. Other than donning boots and a cloak, he was dressed similarly to Arthur in clothes that weren’t good for much more than sleeping. Arthur regarded him sidelong as he settled in next to Arthur like mates sharing a log at a campfire. “Which one of them went crying mummy?”

“Baldo,” Leon replied. “He followed you down from the balcony,” he added, referring to the open colonnade overlooking the main entrance to the royal household. “May I be plain, sire?”

“I should hope so, by now.”

Leon acknowledged that with a nod. “Hubert has been familiarized with Gaius’s patient list and medications, as you asked.”

Arthur nodded. “Good.”

“There is a…general dissatisfaction about his appointment.”

“It’s only temporary,” Arthur said. “Is he disliked or something? Incompetent?”

“Not exactly.” Leon reset his feet so that he could clasp his hands between his knees. “It is only that they – that is, _we_ – are concerned that you will deny Merlin the right to take over as court physician. Most of us…prefer him. And he deserves it.”

“Yes, he does.”

“I also believe that we would all benefit from him taking Gaius’s place on the council.”

Arthur glanced sideways and gave a light snort. “Is there anything else that you think your king should be doing?”

Leon looked at him sharply to gauge whether or not he had overstepped, and then offered a sheepish smile. “No, sire. That covers it for now.”

Arthur huffed out a laugh. “Not that I disagree, but it isn’t as easy as all that.”

It seemed for a moment that Leon would let the conversation die while they both gazed into the darkness beyond the steps. “Forgive me, sire, but…you do realize he’s a nobleman’s son. It would be entirely appropriate to appoint him your advisor, even with as young as he is.”

Arthur blinked, then turned on the step to face Leon’s profile. “Did he tell you that?” he demanded.

“Not in so many words,” Leon admitted. “It’s just…well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? He’s too well bred for a peasant.”

“I certainly thought so,” Arthur allowed. “Eventually. But he says he’s not.”

“Can you blame him?” Leon deferred to his clasped hands, still presenting Arthur only with the side of his face to talk to. “Sire…Arthur. You know that I would never seek to malign your father. Uther was a good king, if harsh, but he presided over a terrible time in Camelot’s history. He was…given little choice in the matter.”

Debatable, all of it, but Arthur appreciated Leon’s tact if nothing else. “Say what you mean, Leon.”

Leon nodded, folding his lips in so that his mustache seemed to blend into the beard below. “Merlin would have to hide his parentage if his father were someone Uther killed.”

 Arthur frowned. “I know we’re not suggesting that Merlin’s out for revenge against my father.”

“No – _no –_ of course not!” Leon shifted on the step, uneasy. “Sire – I fear that I may say something I’ve no right to divulge.”

It hit him suddenly, what Leon was getting at. “His magic. You know about his magic.”

Leon went unnaturally still; he might not have even breathed for a time. Finally, reluctantly, he met Arthur’s gaze. “Yes.”

They stared at each other, each sizing the other up. Arthur wondered if Leon would actually challenge him, were Arthur to condemn Merlin as a sorcerer. “How?” Arthur demanded.

“Initially? The dragon.”

Arthur squinted at him, remembering the twisted little white creature chirping on the shore in the cauldron of Arianrhod. He hadn’t told anyone about that. “Go on.”

“I was not entirely unconscious when it scattered us in the field.”

It took a moment for Arthur to realize that Leon referred to the Great Dragon, and not the crippled pale thing that had consumed his sister. With a long breath, he stated, “It’s not dead, is it.”

“I saw Merlin order it away – threaten it if it ever harmed Camelot again. He’s a dragonlord, Arthur. He’s of noble blood.”

Arthur nodded, thoughtful. “Yes, I know.” He looked away then, aware that Leon continued to stare at his ear. “God, it must have been Balinor.” He dropped his face into one hand, remembering the ferocity of Merlin’s reaction in the forest as he curled over the dead man’s body. “He would have stopped the dragon sooner if he could have. It was Balinor.” Arthur had berated him for it, for crying over a stranger. His own father. “I am such an idiot.”

Into the quiet, with Arthur still hiding his face, Leon said, “I was saved by magic, when the druids healed me with the cup of life. I felt it, Arthur. Magic is not evil; men are evil, and not all men. Just some.” A rustle of cloth betrayed his restlessness – how the conversation left him discomfited. “Perhaps it is time for a change.”

Arthur closed his eyes and scrubbed his hand through his hair before coming to rest like that, with his head bowed. _You cannot be a great king and make him proud at the same time._ He imagined for a moment that he could smell the damp and mildew of a dank old cave where a goddess laid in wait, relegated to the dark. _What is your choice, Arthur Pendragon?_

Arthur took one last moment to squeeze his eyes shut against the weight of what he felt he must do. Something was dying here on this step, and he wasn’t sure if he could survive its loss intact. But enough; he was the king. He did not have the luxury of weakness. Ironically, he thought that he was glad his father had taught him that. “Yes,” he replied, pushing himself up with his hands on his knees. He looked down at Leon, gratified that at least he looked as shocked as Arthur felt. “Yes, it is.”

* * *

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sooooo sorry, I keep killing people I actually really like. I blame the weather.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry this took so long. This chapter would NOT come easy. I kept fighting to make it do what I wanted while letting the story do what it wanted, and we just sort of knocked heads for a while. So, here is the next chapter. Happy December to all of you!
> 
> Chapter warnings at the end, but they are spoilery.

**Chapter 3: The Death Song of Uther Pendragon**

 

_Uther’s head tilted and moved like a snake as he sat forward on his throne, eyes fixed uncomfortably intent upon Arthur. His words, when they came, were parodies of ones he had spoken in life; they chilled Arthur more now, to hear them coming from his ghost. “Your whole life, I tried to prepare you for the day you would become king.”_

_Arthur bit his lip and fought not to hurl back the sorts of words he might regret. He looked at this caricature of his father, and knew that it was not the man who had sat in that chair alive. It was a shade, and perhaps a truer reflection of what Uther had been, at his core. But Arthur still loved him. It was still his father. And his words, his disappointment and disgust…they stung._

_“Did you learn nothing?”_

_Arthur swallowed. “I watched you rule,” he replied. “I learned that if you trust no one, you’ll always live in fear.” His voice gained strength, because he knew the truth of what he said from the sneer that fought to hide within the line of Uther’s mouth. “Your hatred came from fear, not strength.”_

_Uther rose from the chair, a looming presence that should not have dwelt in that room anymore. “How dare you,” he hissed._

_“I loved and respected you,” Arthur went on, willing his father to hear him, to_ see _what Arthur had known for years now, and to accept it, for the sake of his own peace if nothing else. “But I have to rule the kingdom in my own way. I have to do what I believe to be right.”_

* * *

Arthur made several stops throughout the castle just as the sun was rising, Leon close behind him. No one mentioned his socked feet, of course, because he was the king, and he was allowed to be odd. They noticed, though. Pretty much everyone glanced down as he approached, as was proper, and then they blinked or hurried to look away, trying to be deferential without actually staring at Arthur’s feet, and pointedly not reacting to the fact that their king was wandering around the castle in the near-dark wearing his bedclothes and no shoes. Leon thought it the most amusing thing he’d witnessed all month; his poorly choked guffaws were not helping anything.

His chambers were empty when Arthur finally returned to them, the sun new and yellow-bright, low in the autumn sky where it shone through the stained glass of his windows. He paused for a moment to look out across the courtyard, eyes falling automatically to the platform that ever stood ready in the square. There was no wood piled around it now. His father had kept a dozen cords stacked neatly in a small chamber below the main stairs, dry hardwood soaked and cured in lamp oil that would light and flame at the slightest spark. It had remained there ever since his death, untouched. Leon stood below, directing a small hoard of servants in bringing it all out. The dew had yet to dry on the outside of the window glass, and every now and then, someone would pass at just the right point that the sparkle in a few drops would blot out the man’s face and replace it with a white flare like stars.

Arthur watched until the wood had all been piled about the base of the pyre, and he bore witness to a nervous crowd gathered at the far side of the courtyard, knit close together and hanging onto each other. He made himself look at the fear on their faces, at the way they each looked to their neighbor as if wondering: is it him? Does she have magic? Will I be next, for standing too close, for appearing to know them, for being appalled at the pyre where someone might see my face? This was what the laws against magic had wrought, and Arthur forced himself to see it – townsperson against townsperson, the fear, the thought that whoever makes the accusation first might be spared themselves. This was the price of Uther’s grief: A kingdom divided. This was why Camelot, however mighty, was still not strong. Arthur waited for people to begin hurrying about, no doubt spreading rumors and fear throughout the lower town. It made him feel sick. Only when he saw Merlin step hesitantly into the sunshine with a basket of medicines, freeze, and then stumble hastily back inside, did Arthur finally turn away. He had hoped for better from his closest subject, especially after the previous night, though Arthur’s disappointment wasn’t Merlin’s fault. The fact that even he looked at that pyre and thought that Arthur meant to burn someone on it… It hurt to think how little his word actually counted to the one person Arthur trusted above all else, but more, it confirmed his suspicion that in this, at least, he had failed as king.

The halls bustled with activity as Arthur made his way down to the physician’s chamber. He heard raised voices as he approached and slowed, just in case he would need to intervene in something untoward. As he drew near the partially open door, however, he recognized Gwaine’s tone as the one he used to sooth horses and skittish barmaids. Arthur uncoiled and let the tension drop from his sword arm as he reached the door.

Merlin shouted, “Stop that!” followed by a clatter, and the hard shuffling of feet in a hurry. “Look, I know you don’t understand, I’m not asking you to, just – let go!”

Arthur shoved into the room and hesitated at the sight of Gwaine physically restraining Merlin from stuffing things into a travel pack. They both froze, and Merlin paled considerably before he thrashed anew and dislodged Gwaine’s hold. Arthur backed into the door to close it, and stayed where he was as Merlin scrambled across the room, spun around a few times as if searching for another way out, and then flailed into the corner.

“Princess – ”

Arthur held up a hand to stop Gwaine from saying anything more, his eyes on the rapid flutter of Merlin’s chest, heaving like a bird that stunned itself flying into a window. “Merlin, no one is being burned.”

Something ugly flit across Merlin’s expression like an accusation. He remained silent. Years ago, when Arthur had realized what Merlin was, he’d wondered what might happen, were Uther to ever find out. He had thought that Merlin might attack in defense of himself, beg for his life, curse Camelot and all within it and swear his revenge, or any other number of things that sorcerers typically did when caught. This silence, heavy with judgement and betrayal, was worse than the scenarios that Arthur imagined. There was no stubborn dignity or bravado in it; it was simply a truth. In so many ways, Merlin was still just a boy, stung by the repeated blows of reality as everyone around him continued to fall short of the goodness and decency he thought he was meant to expect from them. And they were such easy ideals to live up to, upon reflection: be a good person; be a just person; act accordingly. Simple things like that shouldn’t be so difficult. Arthur wondered if it was the same for everyone else who failed at it, that they simply managed to get in their own ways and trip over nothing.

“No one is being burned,” Arthur repeated, forceful. “Not you, and not anyone else.”

Merlin shook his head, and kept shaking it, a solid and disbelieving denial. When he spoke, his voice was thick with mucous and unshed tears, his lip curled as if in self-disgust. “I don’t believe you. I saw what they’re doing.”

“Merlin – ”

“I saw it! They’re making a pyre, Arthur!” He spit his king’s name like a curse.

Arthur breathed through the burn in his chest. He had expected this when he’d seen Merlin from the high window, but he had _not_ expected the pain of it. “Merlin, I swear on Guinevere’s memory, no one is being burned on that pyre ever again.” He stepped forward and made a gesture toward the window. “Look, Merlin. Look at it.”

Merlin blinked a few times and then glanced at the window, shoulders hunched as he pressed back against the wall. The column of smoke from the burning wood rose high, black and thick in the air outside.

Arthur forgot all about Gwaine until he moved toward the window himself, glancing at both Arthur and Merlin as if they were two armies poised to clash right where he was walking. He climbed up onto the ledge to get a view out the window, and spent a moment merely standing there. “Merls, he’s telling the truth.” Gwaine leaned back and stepped down. “There’s nobody on it. He’s just burning the old wood.” Gwaine propped himself against the ledge and regarded Merlin with the kind of care and caution of which no one normally thought Gwaine capable. After a moment, he twisted his head to peer sideways at Arthur too. “Somebody wanna fill me in?”

It may have been Gwaine’s reserve that betrayed him – that he asked what Arthur was doing rather than why Merlin would be so upset at a pyre. Arthur pressed his lips together and sighed. “Does _everyone_ know? Honestly, Merlin – how are you still alive?”

Merlin had straightened and let his face go blank, staring at Arthur as if warring with himself over whether or not to regard this as a trick. He ticked and looked at the window briefly, then Gwaine. The way he held himself, the cant of his body, spoke of wariness, as if Merlin hadn’t known that Gwaine knew, and wasn’t sure of his reaction.

“Magic,” Gwaine said, pointing at Merlin. Then he jabbed his finger against his own chest with a tiny flare of pride that he couldn’t quite conceal. “Strength.” He rotated his hand and wiggled the finger at Arthur. “Courage.”

It took Arthur a moment to remember the funny little man at the bridge crossing to the Perilous Lands, and then he nearly rolled his eyes at his own stupidity. That man had all but told Arthur that one of them was magic, and one look at Gwaine would disabuse anyone of the notion that it might be him. He had no restraint whatsoever; he’d never be able to just not use it in front of anyone. But if he were getting onto the subject of obvious moments he should have realized what Merlin was, he would have to count Merlin confessing to the entire court, and Uther, that he was a sorcerer. Of course he’d done it to save Guinevere’s life, but even at the time, Arthur remembered being surprised that Merlin could actually lie like that. Only later did he realize that Merlin hadn’t appeared to be lying that day because what he’d said was the truth. Idiot. Though which of them was the worse one in that instance could be debated.

Gwaine straightened and sidestepped until he stood pointedly between Merlin and Arthur. “You had better mean what you say, princess. Because I’ll let you in on a little secret. I didn’t come to Camelot for _you_.” He cocked his head and his eyes drifted in such a way as to make it clear who he _was_ here for. “Making me choose won’t end well for that crown of yours.”

Arthur nodded. “Just this once, I won’t consider that treason.”

Gwaine bent his head in acknowledgement, chin cocked to one side, but he didn’t take his eyes off of Arthur, and he didn’t retreat.

Unnoticed, Merlin had peeled himself from his corner and now appeared over Gwaine’s shoulder, cautious. A gust of wind blew a billow of heat and ash in through the window to swirl in the sunlight like a fine mist. It cast the room into hazy undertones, like an old memory. Arthur stared at him, at the careful consideration of his gaze. He wanted to crack a joke to break the tension, but this was not the time for it. However loyal Merlin was, and however much Gaius, at least, believed that it would override all else, Arthur could not take the chance that Merlin might bolt. Never turn on him, perhaps, but leave him all the same. One blow too many.

Arthur sniffed and drew himself up. “Gwaine, would you leave us? I wish to speak with Merlin in private.”

Gwaine sized him up for a moment, his assessment less than flattering to judge by the way he continued to eyeball Arthur even as he turned his head for Merlin’s permission. Merlin nodded. He didn’t even hesitate, truth be told, and Arthur almost wanted to yell at him for lacking any sense of self preservation. It took him a few heartbeats to absorb his own self-assessment: Arthur was not entirely to be trusted. His word was not that good anymore.

As if he could read Arthur’s thoughts on his face – and maybe he could – Merlin nodded. “It’s alright, Gwaine. I trust him.”

Arthur sucked in a careful breath and bit the inside of his lip, his eyes falling shut for a moment. He heard Gwaine moving slowly out from between them, and then to the door. “I’ll be just here,” Gwaine announced, presumably pointing to the corridor. “If you need me.”

Merlin replied, “I won’t.”

Eventually, the door bumped shut, and Arthur lifted his head from where he had tucked his chin near to his chest. He regarded Merlin from across half of the room. By way of apology, he said, “I guess I had to find out eventually.”

Merlin squinted. “Find out what?”

“What you really thought of me,” Arthur told him. He lifted a hand around in general. “Regarding magic.”

Merlin moved his head back on his neck like a recoiling bird. “Why would you do that?”

The ash continued to swirl in gentle eddies throughout the room, settling in a fine layer like dust here and there. Arthur wondered if this happened with every pyre lit down below. “Because you…you’re…” He struggled for the right word, but couldn’t quite find it. Finally, he settled on, “Forgiving. Of me. You defend me when you shouldn’t. I needed to know how…how bad things are. How hard I’ll need to work to convince others that I’m not my father.”

Merlin didn’t quite glare, but it was a near thing. “You’re an arse.”

“In my defense, I didn’t think you’d try to flee.”

Merlin narrowed his eyes, somehow conveying suspicious incredulity. “What _did_ you think I’d do?”

“Yell at me,” Arthur admitted. “Maybe throw something.”

“I don’t throw things at you,” Merlin argued, missing the point. “You’re the one who throws things. Quite a lot, actually. I have bruises.” He paused, then shook his head. “What do I think of you, then? What did this prove?”

“That you don’t trust me.”

Merlin blinked. “Of course I trust you. Why wouldn’t I trust you?”

Arthur started to retort, but his mouth closed of his own accord. He felt his posture sag a bit. “You don’t,” he countered softly. “And I can think of a dozen proofs without even trying. Merlin, this isn’t a condemnation. I know you’re loyal – you’re _stupidly_ loyal – but you don’t trust me. Apparently, you trust me even less than I thought. And that’s alright,” he insisted even as Merlin shook his head and tried to argue against what he was saying. “I need to earn that. I understand.”

Merlin obviously disagreed, but rather than keep denying Arthur’s assertions, he came back with a simple, “No. You don’t understand.”

That gave Arthur pause. Before he could find a way to ask what that meant without sounding either meek or confrontational, neither of which would come off as regal, Merlin swung away to paw at the medicine kit he’d been carrying when Arthur spotted him in the courtyard. “What are you doing? Egbert’s covering that.”

“I can’t just sit here and do nothing!” The outburst seemed to startle Merlin as much as it did Arthur. Merlin pushed at the lid even though it was already secure. Without looking away from his hands, Merlin said, “I can’t be in here.” His voice was small in a way that set Arthur’s teeth on edge, because it wasn’t right for Merlin to sound like that. “He’s just – ” Merlin gestured at the door to his tower room, and then snatched his own hand back as if to negate it. “ – there,” Merlin finished. “They have him wrapped, and they won’t come back until sunset to take him to the forest, and I can’t – ” He started to bow over the medicine kit, then caught himself and pushed upright again. “Arthur, I can’t. I can’t be here.”

Arthur stepped forward until he faced Merlin’s shoulder blade, sharp like a knife in his face. He stared at the knob of Merlin’s spine instead and tried to think of a way to tell him that Gaius’s death wasn’t his fault without sounding trite. He opened his mouth a few times only to close it again, and finally just said, “Come with me to council, then.”

Merlin rocked forward a bit and rounded his shoulders as he craned his neck back to look at Arthur. The hope that tried to light his face was pitiful in how earnest it was.

“And I’m sorry,” Arthur added, though even he realized that it came off as too flippant. Ungracious. He tried to inject sincerity into his manner as he clarified, “For the bonfire. We can’t burn that wood in hearths – it’s too combustible, and too volatile to store anywhere else. I wanted to be rid of it, and the scaffold too. It’s all burning.” He swallowed and let his eyes fix blankly on the window where smoke continued to rise into the sky. “It wasn’t my intention to scare you like that. I don’t want – ” He paused and corrected himself. “It was wrong to test you, however unintentionally. You didn’t deserve it.”

In Arthur’s periphery, Merlin twisted to face forward again and hung his head for a moment. “Council started already. You’re late.”

“Yes,” Arthur agreed. “I’m fully well aware of that fact, _Mer_ lin.”

“No, you’re not. You forgot again.” Merlin finally pushed away from the table and faced Arthur, his mouth creased in a smile that didn’t reach beyond his lips.

“Well, I’m the king,” Arthur replied. He tried not to react to the look on Merlin’s face, to the sickly edge of it. “It’s not like they can do much without me.”

Merlin nodded and looked down, his mouth falling into a wavering line where Arthur could barely see it – not exactly the response that he had been hoping for. “Of course, sire.”

“Well. Come on then.” Neither of them moved for a moment, until Arthur remembered that he was supposed to be leading the way. Instead, he hooked Merlin around the neck and dragged him around toward the door, and then gentled his arm so that it hung down Merlin’s shoulder and over his chest. Merlin stumbled at first, but recovered enough to give Arthur the side eye. Arthur merely thumped him on the chest and kept going, forcing Merlin to keep pace with him.

* * *

It was dusk before Arthur had any time to himself. The court paid its respects to Gaius just before sunset, as his body was carried out, wrapped in plain white linen and borne up on the shoulders of a half dozen men Arthur had never seen before. It could have been anyone. Arthur stayed back out of respect; he could hardly miss the wary looks tossed his way by the many mourners following the procession out into the forest and the cold rain. The manner of preparing the body was of the old religion, and though Gaius had served Uther for most of his adult life, there were many who remembered that he had himself been a sorcerer. Renouncing magic couldn’t undo that, and the king’s decree still stood unchanged that no sorcerer is to receive a burial. Technically, their participations and mourning broke the law. Arthur watched the trail of people from his chamber window as it wound down the street of the lower town and out of sight. Gaius garnered a respectable funeral train, but there were not so many people that any one should be obscured. Arthur wondered if Merlin were already outside the citadel, waiting at the grave site, since Arthur didn’t see him in the procession.

He waited well into the night for Merlin to come back, irrationally hoping that he could make Merlin stay again – sleep where Arthur might keep an eye on him – but he never showed. Eventually, Arthur fell into a restless doze in his chair near the inadequate fire, wondering what was happening in the forest, if all of the people that he had seen following Gaius’s funeral train were sympathetic toward magic. Did they condemn him for betraying other sorcerers? Were they going out there to hurl vitriol and blame at his grave? Or did they cry and see their own plights and internal conflicts in him, lying dead in his wrappings like a message?

Some time late in the third watch, Arthur startled awake and nearly kicked Merlin in the face where he had knelt to gently remove Arthur’s boots. “What are you doing?”

Merlin looked at him. “They need drying.” As if Arthur were the simple one.

Arthur shook his head to try to dislodge the sleep clinging at his mind. He reached out without thinking and found himself being hauled up with Merlin’s shoulders propped under his arm. “No, I mean – this. Why are you doing this?”

Merlin merely shook his head and helped Arthur stumble across the room to his bed, drunk with sleep and exhaustion. Arthur wondered how Merlin wasn’t just as knackered; he’d rested even less than Arthur lately. Always, actually. He rose before Arthur every day, late to breakfast or not, and retired after him. How was he not dead on his feet as a matter of course? “You can’t sleep in your chair,” Merlin said. “You’ll hurt your back.”

“Stop being – _ow_!”

“See?” Merlin deposited him on his bed, which had been turned down and packed with warming stones at some point before he woke. The fire had also been stoked and fed, and now crackled far more merrily with a blaze of heat from where Arthur had previously been sleeping.

Arthur slumped and eventually spilled back onto his sheets while Merlin huffed and seemed to be trying to figure out how to remove Arthur’s trousers without it turning into some kind of _thing_. “I should be troubled,” Arthur slurred, his eyes lidded, “at how often you put me to bed like an infant.”

“You act like an infant,” Merlin muttered. “Off with this. I’m not fumbling around with your trousers.” He tipped his head at Arthur’s bottom half and gave him a pointed look.

Arthur craned his head to look where Merlin pointed as if he needed the reminder of what trousers were, or where his were located. Then he rolled his eyes and obediently tugged at the laces. “You wouldn’t have the slightest idea what to do with my trousers.”

“Of course not.” Merlin was rustling around somewhere outside of Arthur’s line of sight. He reappeared in time enough to tug Arthur’s loosened trousers off of his legs and then get a soft pair of warm, wooly sleep leggings tugged up to Arthur’s knees. “Right. One more stand-up. Come on.” He hauled at Arthur’s arms and Arthur allowed himself to be pulled back to his feet. He made the mistake of looking down where Merlin knelt in front of him, breath hot on Arthur’s thighs as he slid the fabric of the leggings up the rest of the way. More breath puffed against Arthur’s navel while Merlin tied the drawstring. On his way to standing, Merlin skimmed Arthur’s tunic off of him too, and then he held up a baggy tunic for Arthur’s inspection. “Yes or no?”

Arthur didn’t look at the tunic; he peered at Merlin instead. The careful, disinterested smile that Merlin typically wore while completing chores wavered. Arthur shifted as he took in the sight of the same clothes that Merlin had worn to council that morning, rumpled but dry, and his usual worn leather boots, free of mud in spite of the rain that had been pouring down since midday. Of course, Merlin was a sorcerer and could have magicked himself clean and dry, but he never had before. “You didn’t go to the funeral.”

There was something brittle in the way Merlin rocked backwards and jutted his chin in the other direction, refusing to engage with Arthur, his lip a thin curl of…disgust?...beneath his nostrils.

Arthur shoved away from the bedpost. “Merlin, where have you been all night?”

Merlin gave half a head shake and swallowed, except it looked more like someone fighting not to choke. Rather than make any response, he lifted the tunic, clearly meaning to put it on Arthur whether he wanted it or not.

“Stop.” Arthur jerked to one side to evade the tunic and then grabbed it and pressed it down to hang between them. “What happened? Was there an injury or something that required your presence?”

“Nothing happened,” Merlin told him, pulling the tunic away from him and trying again to slip it over Arthur’s head. His tone implied that the subject was not up for conversation.

Irritated now, Arthur smacked at the tunic and Merlin’s hands with it. “Stop it. Merlin, he was practically your father.”

“I know.” Merlin stepped back and looked at the tunic. He seemed to waver for a moment before deciding to put the tunic away again.

“Were you ill again?” Arthur asked. He followed after Merlin simply to force him to look at Arthur. When it appeared that Merlin would refuse to acknowledge him, Arthur snagged him by an elbow and pulled him back around. “You can’t walk away when I’m speaking to you. I’m the king.”

Merlin’s voice went rough with what sounded like fatigue. “Yes, sire. And no, I wasn’t ill again, sire.”

Arthur sighed through his nose. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I really hate it when you do that.” He held his arms out. “Shirt.”

Merlin frowned at him, but at his chest rather than meeting his gaze. “What, dress you?” He fumbled for a moment and then slid the tunic over Arthur’s arms one sleeve at a time.

“No, of course not. I mean all of the ‘yes, sire. No, sire. Will there be anything else, sire?’” Arthur mocked. He ducked his head when Merlin lifted the tunic and waited until his head crested the hem of the neckline. “You’re the only friend I have, you know. I can’t stand it when you go all…” He flapped a hand around and finished, “All _George_.”

“You’re a king,” Merlin said by way of explanation.

“Yes, I had noticed,” Arthur muttered.

“So we can’t be friends.”

It only took a moment for Arthur to recognize the rephrasing of his own words, so many years ago. _All right. I know I’m a prince, so we can’t be friends._ He rolled his eyes, but more at himself and his own arrogance, or perhaps it _was_ at Merlin for being so bloody dense sometimes. “Well, maybe not in public, but I’d like to think that here, at least – ”

“That’s not how friendship works,” Merlin interrupted. Arthur went still while Merlin tugged at the collar of the tunic. Finally, he gave the tunic a humorless smile and stepped back. “Will there be anything else, sire?” There wasn’t even any mockery to it, and there should have been – it sometimes seemed that Merlin mocked him without end.

Arthur stepped forward to conserve the distance between them. “Why didn’t you go to the forest tonight?”

Dishearteningly, Merlin stepped back. “Why does it matter?”

“Are you still weakened from the fit? Is that it?”

“No – ”

“Then what, Merlin? He was your father in all but blood.”

“I _know_.” Merlin backed away again, but this time, Arthur reached out and cupped his hands around Merlin’s neck, the line of his jaw, thumbs scratching across a dusting of stubble. He couldn’t remember ever seeing Merlin unshaven before; he hadn’t even noticed that Merlin was capable of growing a beard at all. Merlin flinched, his head tilting in Arthur’s grasp. “What are doing?” he demanded, suspicious. “What – ”

“This isn’t like you.” Arthur tightened his fingers enough to make Merlin try to wrench back again. “You’re not usually so…heartless.”

Merlin’s face rumpled and he tried to pull Arthur’s hands off. “Let me go.”

“No.” Arthur shook his head. “Something’s wrong with you. Have you been enchanted?”

Merlin’s nostrils flared as he sneered, “Oh, that’s very Uther of you. Something unusual is going on so it must be sorcery.”

It was an ugly thing to say, and possibly treasonous, but Arthur persisted. “I have lost too many people to a sorcery I didn’t recognize at the time. I didn’t even see it in my own bed.” He thought a silent apology to Guinevere.

Merlin’s features went tight and wrinkled, and he fought a little harder to remove Arthur’s hands. “Let me go.” If Arthur didn’t know him, the tone of his voice may have raised hair on his arms.

“You will explain yourself to me,” Arthur told him, dead calm by force of will alone. He hoped that the jump of his pulse could not be seen in his neck, though. “What happened tonight? Why didn’t you go to Gaius’s funeral?” He paused to squint a little closer, looking for something wrong in Merlin’s eyes. “You don’t seem enchanted. Shouldn’t it be obvious?”

“You’ve never noticed before.”

That was a low blow and Arthur caught himself in the midst of opening his mouth to gape. How could he… “You – ”

“I can make you let go,” Merlin said, a clear threat, but his eyes locked on Arthur and gave him away.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Arthur countered, growing angry himself. “You would never risk hurting me.”

Merlin gave a soft grunt of exertion as he twisted in Arthur’s grasp, but the struggle felt disingenuous. He wasn’t necessarily trying to get away, though Arthur suspected that he may not have realized that himself.

“Why didn’t you go to the woods?”

“Get off of me!”

Arthur pulled him back in by one tensed and corded forearm when Merlin dropped his weight and wrenched himself back. “Stop struggling and tell me.” He marveled at the calm of his own voice in the face of Merlin spitting some amorphous kind of rage. It seemed so out of proportion to the conversation thus far.

Without warning, Merlin gurgled out something high pitched and flung himself back, but he only succeeded in being jerked around by the arm that Arthur still refused to release, shoulder slamming into Arthur’s sternum. “You don’t get to know everything just because you’re the bloody king!”

“Merlin – ” Worried now, Arthur tried to swipe at the wet smearing across Merlin’s cheeks.

Merlin twisted his head to the side, incensed perhaps at his own show of weakness. “Go on, tell me how I’m a stupid girl’s petticoat!”

“No.” Arthur hauled him closer since he already Merlin’s left side jammed up hard and sharp against his breastbone. “I was wrong; some men are worth your tears.”

“My tears are worth exactly nothing!” Merlin twisted and wrenched himself away but Arthur wouldn’t release him. They overbalanced instead and Merlin’s foot caught on a table leg, dragging them both to their knees. “It won’t bring any of them back, or make anyone feel better! They’re dead! What good would it even do?”

This wasn't just about Gaius, Arthur realized. He grunted and heaved Merlin back across the floor, his arms locked in solid bands as if wrestling a wild boar. “Talk to me. Tell me what this is.”

Merlin growled, but it was gurgled and sheer. He made one last desperate bid to break Arthur’s hold, then slumped against Arthur in a miserable line of…of shoulder blades like hat racks, and antlers for limbs. “It’s alright, my boy.” Merlin hiccupped. “I couldn’t get to him, he saw me, and he was gasping but he said _it’s alright, my boy_ and he was looking at me, and I couldn’t – ”

“You couldn’t save him,” Arthur finished.

“He went grey all over.” A raw, ugly sound heaved its way out of Merlin’s chest and he looked like he might gag on it as he folded over Arthur’s arm braced up against his diaphragm. Merlin’s fingers found the edge of Arthur’s trouser leg and clawed in at it as if he just needed something to ground himself by. “He was looking at me and smiling and his chest spasmed, I saw it stop moving, he just _died_ like that and I couldn’t move, it was all numb – ”

A soft whoosh drew Arthur’s eyes across the room to the fireplace, where the flames started to rise and lick dangerously high. In his arms, Merlin gave a dull, rough howl, more vibration than sound, and twisted again to free himself. The fire echoed it in a roar that spilled out from the hearth. Somewhere near the bed, something shattered, and Arthur glanced over his shoulder at the scattered shards of a pot that had once held an arnica salve, a fine mist dispersing above it from the force of the explosion. He faced forward again, breathing hard. “Merlin.” He dragged the struggling body closer again. “Merlin! You have to calm down.” The air crackled like static, as when Arthur and Morgana used to rub their socked feet across his father’s woolen hearth rug to make their hair levitate. Arthur could feel the goosepimples rising on his arms.

Merlin tore himself mostly out of Arthur’s grasp, only to find himself in a headlock. Arthur was actually surprised at the force of the punch that Merlin landed low against his ribs, though it didn’t seem a purposeful hit. Arthur merely shifted his hold and then winced when Merlin kicked out and cracked his foot against the wall. The violence was startling; he’d never known Merlin to lose control, to be savage like this, ever, not even in his own defense. But if this was what happened when he gave in – the bench at the table cracked like a falling oak tree and splintered as it fell over – then it was no wonder that Merlin contained himself so well.

“Let me _go_!”

Every candle in the room flared with a bright column of flame that licked all the way up to the ceiling beams. Arthur understood this kind of fury – helplessness, nowhere to direct his rage but back onto himself, needing some kind of outlet to take the edge off so that it didn’t consume alive from the inside…. He couldn’t let Merlin go, release him out into the castle like this. He was too dangerous until he’d calmed down. He needed an outlet, any outlet, something just to take the edge off, break him out of this and calm him down.

Arthur propelled them both back across the floor and rolled to trap Merlin against the flagstones before he hurt himself, never mind the thought that he might set the whole room on fire. “You have to calm down. Merlin, listen to me. You have to stop.”

There was an edge of panic mixed in with the fury now, and Merlin seemed to realize what he was doing as he stared up with wide eyes at Arthur. “Get off of me – get _off_ – _GET OFF – ”_

Arthur often forgot that Merlin was no longer the boy fumbling a mace in the marketplace; he had grown, and while not as strong as Arthur, his arms were corded with the ropy kind of muscle that gangly boys often acquired as they aged, hard and sharp like marble. Merlin thrashed under Arthur’s weight, careless of where he landed his fists, and it _hurt_. He expected the sting of magic next, braced himself for it, but it never came.

He didn’t know exactly when everything shifted. All he knew for certain was that right then, in that moment, the most urgent need was getting Merlin to calm down and reign in his magic. Arthur had to do something to snap him out of it, distract him, break his concentration, or rather the concentration of his panic and whatever other emotional break had fueled this. He couldn’t hit Merlin – he didn’t want to, and even if he did, he couldn’t risk another head injury. It was also possible that if Arthur attacked him properly, the volatile swirl of Merlin’s magic would turn on him in self-defense whether Merlin wanted it to or not. His magic wasn’t spells; it was elemental, and as such, it could act without Merlin’s conscious intent. Arthur thanked the gods for his research over the past few months for teaching him that critical difference. In any case, he needed something else now, something that would serve the same purpose to jar him from his current focus, but that would not seem like an assault to trigger everything funneling down to focus on Arthur.

The water pitcher on the table startled Arthur from his frantic thoughts as it burst and sent steaming water showering over the table. Beneath him, Merlin was trying to suffocate himself with his own arms, eyes clenched shut tightly enough to leak stress tears, gulping in breaths that tried desperately and failed to be centering or calming. He continued to alternate that with pushing to get Arthur off of him, and flinching at each shatter or crack or rush of flame. “Stop, stop, _stop_ , stop…”

None of this was working, and Arthur looked up at the brilliance of the candlelight guttering unnaturally high around them. He would have expected a wave of sound and chaos like battle, but other than the sound of fire like tattered ship sales in the wind, and the occasional item breaking, it was silent enough in the room that the only deafening part of the whole thing was Merlin’s terrified, fractured chanting. Arthur felt as if he were seeing the room, hearing it, from underwater, everything ticking slow and languorous like time stopped in a cave. Arthur stopped thinking and moved on instinct, since that was his strength in a crisis anyway. One moment, he was throwing his full weight onto Merlin’s chest and trying to get his knees placed to stop all of the flailing, and the next, he’d seized a handful of Merlin’s hair hard enough to make him yelp. Arthur’s mouth intercepted the sound.

There were too many teeth between them, and Arthur almost pulled away, convinced that he’d done something monumentally stupid. Merlin’s fingernails dug into the back of his neck at that moment, however – eight of them in double crescent rows all but gouged into Arthur’s skin. He bit at Merlin’s lips instead, shifting his weight without thought to grab at other parts of him – pectoral, neck, a hip. His skin tasted of salt – sweat and tears – and the inside of his mouth was hot and thick with mucous and the sourness of a long day without much food, lips chapped and damp, but plush from being bitten and flushed with blood. Arthur pressed and shoved his tongue in, hand now brushing the scratch of hair on Merlin’s cheek, puffed out and round with air and Arthur’s tongue. The room began to hum and Arthur felt it crackle as his hair stood on end, like static coursing through him from a lightening strike too close. He didn’t give Merlin a chance to think, only react – mouth moving and pressing, stealing his air, shoving and penetrating down until their teeth clacked and Merlin’s chest heaved for breath in tiny grunts that Arthur felt against his tongue and the fingers that caressed the jut of his neck. All around them, candles guttered and went dark, and a rain of fine particulate suspended in the air fell like a rain of debris and dust and ash all around them.

Merlin jerked his head back and Arthur let his mouth go in favor of sucking brutally at the hard part beneath his ear. He felt more than saw Merlin’s lips part, but he definitely heard the shock of the groan that Merlin cut short and choked on. Arthur bared his teeth against Merlin’s skin and reached farther down to grab and squeeze the inside of Merlin’s thigh, high enough that he could feel the fabric of Merlin’s trousers pulling against turgid flesh where his thumb pressed hard into the tendon there. Merlin gasped and his stomach went concave, eyes flying open in shock. They burned gold.

Merlin jerked against him, shoulders curling up off of the floor, and Arthur bore him back down. He wasn’t gentle about groping around between Merlin’s legs, but neither of them were delicate, and Merlin merely grunted a bit before sinking his teeth into Arthur’s bicep, his hips jogging up against Arthur’s hand. Arthur felt a knee jab against his waist and spared a moment to position Merlin’s leg higher, until it wrapped over his back and clamped down there. They grappled for leverage and then Arthur hunched forward and _thrust_. A strangled sound punched its way from Merlin’s throat, and Arthur lunged for his mouth, determined to have that raw bit of noise for himself. He claimed Merlin’s mouth like a battlefield, tongue drilling down and in until anything Merlin breathed would have to come from Arthur’s lungs.

The chill of the stone floor bit into Arthur’s hand where he had braced it near Merlin’s head and he dropped to his elbow, freeing up his fingers to yank at Merlin’s hair and hold his head where he wanted it. Merlin was letting out tiny grunts of effort as he squirmed underneath Arthur’s weight, searching for friction in all the right places. Arthur shoved his knee higher toward Merlin’s hip and ground down against the hard, humid place between them, cloth scratching against their skin like abrasions, a dry burn that skirted the edge of pain. He was shoving Merlin by fractions closer to the wall, and it must have hurt, but neither of them were complaining exactly. All around them small objects dropped from shelves or out of the air, and the hearth fire contracted so suddenly that it nearly went out, all of the air sucked from around it and into a lingering swirl that settled and dispersed near the table. Arthur mouthed roughly across Merlin’s jaw, stubble scraping his lips, and bit at the hinge near his ear before skimming his hand firmly up over the rough fabric of Merlin’s shirt to pinch at a nipple.

Merlin’s back bowed to press his chest into Arthur’s hand and then he shook and grabbed at the crease where Arthur’s arse met his leg with a sharp huff of breath, artless in the way his muscles contracted like the swell of a wave pushing Arthur up to ride the bow of his body. Merlin pulled at Arthur with both hands and the leg wrapped over his back, his teeth clenched over something strangling that fought to emerge from his throat. It took Arthur a moment to realize what that meant, and he shoved into the wavering curl of Merlin’s body, a solid mass of pressure and resistance at the cresting. Merlin’s head fell back, neck arched and the jut of his throat on display. His eyes were open, bright blue now and unseeing, lips trembling. The sound that he made should have hurt his throat, tight and grating. It looked like pain, the strain of it in the twist of his body as the paralysis broke and Merlin thrashed his head to the side, body jolting and contracting in lingering spasms against Arthur’s. Merlin’s other foot skid across the floor and drew in against Arthur’s calf, trembling. His fingernails dug like talons into Arthur’s shirt, yanking it out of shape. Arthur grasped him by the waist with one hand and cushioned the back of his skull with the other, watching the breaths puff and stutter from Merlin’s lips.

Finally, Merlin’s breaths subsided into the heavy gasps of an overworked horse, and his body unwound by degrees, unevenly, and not all in the right places. Arthur had gone still without thinking, as if he knew that he needed to hold something together with all of his might until the end. A gentle quivering took hold of the body beneath him, Merlin’s teeth actually chattering for a brief moment as he sucked in a hasty breath, and then Merlin blinked several times, rapid flutters to regain his bearings. He appeared shocked by the whole thing, eyes leaking from the release and the aftermath, and the jarring crash after the fight.

Arthur brushed his thumb over Merlin’s cheekbone, his own body gone strangely quiet. “It’s alright.” Why he said it, he wasn’t certain, but he had the strangest feeling that Merlin was panicking, somewhere softly down where Arthur couldn’t see it. “You’re alright.”

Merlin still hadn’t actually looked at him, and it was worrisome. His leg had slipped from Arthur’s back already, but his hands continued to clamp and release, clamp and release with each slowing breath that he took, eyes fixed unseeing on the empty space above their heads. The odd vibration of the air, the weight of it, had passed, the magic finally dormant again. Arthur took it as a good sign and let himself relax in increments, shifting back to take his weight off of Merlin’s stomach.

A small hiccup startled its way from Merlin’s throat, and that was all the warning he gave before he thrashed all of his limbs out and once and toppled Arthur off of him. The tail end of a kick landed Merlin’s heel almost close enough to Arthur’s groin to do him lasting damage. As it was, he deflected it just enough that it landed against the join of Arthur’s hip and thigh instead, but it still hurt, and it still sent him crashing back to the ground. He couldn’t recover in time to stop Merlin wrenching the door open and dashing away down the dark corridor.

By the time Arthur finished cursing and hobbled to the door, guards were jogging in his direction, alarmed by the ruckus in the royal hallway, and Merlin was gone.

* * *

_Arthur didn’t move when Merlin came into the room. He was waiting for the lies, or the false succor, or even the confession._

_“I am so sorry.” Merlin slanted his eyes away and moved sideways into the room, hesitant. “I sh – ” He seemed to try to shake off his loss of words. “I sh-sh-sh – ”_

You should not have killed the king, _Arthur thought. But he didn’t bother saying it. The awful truth of it was that he couldn’t make himself face it again. He couldn’t pick up his sword and swing it at Merlin again, not even for this. What kind of a son did that make him?_

_Merlin looked at the ceiling, resigned and unhappy, and abandoned whatever he actually meant to say. He drew himself up and finally looked at Arthur. “I wish that there was something I could have done.”_

_Arthur thought he’d done more than enough already, but when he looked at Merlin, he didn’t see lies. He saw the omissions, of course, but he’d been seeing those for a while now. Without lifting his head off the back of his chair, Arthur swallowed, fingers twitching where he left his hands hanging limp from the armrests. God, he still couldn’t see evil in the ridiculous boy, could he? Not even now. Merlin looked devastated, as if he’d sat somewhere and cried every one of the tears that Arthur wouldn’t allow himself to shed. Were they tears for the dead king, he wondered? Or for the loss of Arthur’s promise to change the laws on magic? He would have preferred tears of regret for breaking Arthur’s trust, but as he watched Merlin stand there, unable to keep entirely still, he realized that those were likely already there._

_Damn him. Arthur wanted so badly to hate him. “Merlin, no one but me is to blame for this.”_

_“You are not to blame,” Merlin refuted. He was more forceful than he should have been, but the words were broken, so maybe he had to snap them just to get them out. “This isn’t your fault.”_

_Arthur stared at him, refusing to look away or give himself an out for this. “I’m entirely to blame.”_ For trusting you. For asking you. Maybe for using you. _His eyes slid out of focus, but he let them. It would be so easy to blame Merlin, and only Merlin, but how could he? Merlin had saved his life more than once. He’d saved Uther’s, before. That this time, it didn’t work? Magic was treacherous; he knew that already. This… It just proved that again, didn’t it? “My father spent twenty years fighting magic. To think I knew better… I was so arrogant.”_

_Merlin didn’t say anything, but his face spoke volumes._

_“That arrogance cost my father his life.” Arthur knew that his father may have died anyway, but the actual death blow came from him, at his command. From the hand of his…manservant. Sorcerer. The viper that he held close to his breast. And why? Because he thought his father a grief-maddened old fool for his unforgiving eradication of an entire people. Because Arthur had looked at Merlin and seen just a boy trying to do good, to make his way in the world – a boy who happened to have magic. And Arthur didn’t want to destroy that, because he thought it offered hope for a different way. But he didn’t know – he hadn’t lived what Uther lived, and he hadn’t listened to the counsel of his betters. He was an arrogant fool._

_“You were only doing what you thought was right,” Merlin insisted. “I’m sure that old sorcerer meant no harm. Perhaps the spell went wrong.”_

_Arthur broke eye contact; he couldn’t watch this. He needed his guilt, but he needed Merlin’s too. He couldn’t afford forgiveness or excuses for either of them, and he didn’t want to grant them even if he could. He needed Merlin to suffer for this. It wasn’t a charitable thought, but it was true. He wanted Merlin to hurt for it all the more because it would be beneath Arthur to strike an actual blow himself._

_“Uther was dying. Maybe nothing could have saved him.”_

_Arthur swallowed an urge to choke on something cruel, and said instead, “We’ll never know. All I know for sure is that I’ve lost both my parents to magic.”_

_Merlin’s eyes widened by a fraction, but he said nothing._

_“It is_ pure _evil.”_

_Merlin’s throat worked in silence, tendons straining for a moment over an inability to swallow._

_Arthur forced himself not to feel bad for what he’d said. It wasn’t cruel, it was just the truth, however vicious the flare of satisfaction felt as he watched Merlin react. They both needed to hear it, but Merlin especially. He needed to learn. Deliberately, Arthur met his gaze, direct, and willed Merlin to understand what Arthur was saying – that it was directed straight at Merlin – that it was just for him. A warning. A promise. “I’ll never lose sight of that again.” A threat._

_Some kind of comprehension passed there, because consciously or not, Merlin nodded. A knock at the door interrupted whatever else they may have said, and the moment broke. Arthur ignored how Merlin’s throat seemed unwilling to work, and the way his breaths had gone shallow with some internal struggle that Arthur could only guess at, and didn’t want to even if he could. Arthur looked away at the door, down, and then stood, refusing to look at Merlin again. He was letting his father’s killer live. He was letting the man who killed the king remain his most intimate acquaintance. Which one of them were guilty of the greater sin here?_

_Merlin watched him walk around the table, toward the door, passing close enough that Merlin angled himself defensively and leaned away. Arthur ignored him and walked out. There wasn’t much else he could do to punish Merlin for his crimes, other than to make him suffer like this. They’d both be exposed otherwise – Arthur for soliciting the use of magic, and Merlin for performing it, and the both of them for murdering the king. Only Agravaine knew what Arthur had done, and he would remain silent if only because Arthur well knew that he had hated Uther, and blamed him for Ygraine’s death. He would shed no tear for his brother in law. As for the sorcerer, Arthur would never tell anyone that Merlin could put on the face of a doddering old man. He had been an idiot in the tunnels, the old man clutching at his shoulders, and dangling right there – Merlin’s boots, kicking out from where Arthur had hooked him under his knees to carry him. God, he’d been so relieved when he realized who he was carrying on his back because Merlin would never betray him._

_In the corridor, Gaius waited with two guards to lead Arthur to his father’s body. He took a moment to breathe and collect himself, preternaturally aware of Merlin doing the same behind him. When they started off down the hall, he almost didn’t think that Merlin would follow. Arthur wasn’t sure if he felt relief or not at the rapid stutter of footsteps hurrying to catch up a moment later. It would be easier if Merlin just left. As it was, Arthur considered sending him away once this was all over. He didn’t need the temptation again of a sorcerer standing beside him, willing._

_The door of the viewing chamber clicked shut behind him with a finality that drove a spike into his stomach. Arthur’s feet slowed of their own accord until he found himself adrift on the floor several feet away from the plinth, his father’s body a dim blur in repose before him, covered in rich cloth. Arthur had done this. In defiance of the hard-won lessons of his father, Arthur had solicited magic, and killed him. Confronted now with the body of evidence, Arthur couldn’t imagine how he would ever be able to look Merlin in the eye again – a constant reminder of his arrogance, and the price of magic. But Arthur was the one who had actually used it. Merlin had acted on Arthur’s command, out of Arthur’s desperation. Not his own. Arthur had wielded his manservant like a tool to do his bidding, against the learned advice of all others. He had never been so disgusted with himself._

_* * *_

_The sunlight blinded him, luminescent shafts that pierced the room. Arthur lifted his head eventually and regarded the sparkling glass of the windows before turning to see how it struck his father’s countenance. It was only after he looked that he realized he had expected the light to lend an illusion of fullness and life to his still features. Instead, it highlighted the sunken cheeks and the obvious pallor of death that the night had at least obscured._

_Arthur turned his face away and stood. He knew now what he must do; the dark watches had clarified it for him. He could not begin his reign on the unavenged body of his murdered king. Magic had killed him – magic that Arthur commissioned, but that Merlin actually cast. He could not allow himself to be drawn in any longer. Merlin wore the face of a boy, but he was not an innocent; he was a sorcerer. And sorcerers were evil. Arthur could not allow himself to remain under this enchantment any longer – he must refuse to be seduced by it again. Merlin wasn’t necessarily evil, but he was already corrupted, and his father had taught him that such a perversion could not be excised once it had taken hold. It was unfortunate that Merlin had allowed himself to be sucked in by the allure of magic, but if Arthur felt sympathy for the boy now, it would only allow the perversion to grow until Merlin disappeared within it. Merlin had magic. And magic must be destroyed, for the good of all. After all, however kind and good a man Merlin was, he had already seduced a prince to use magic, and caused the death of a king. It would be a mercy, surely, to let him die now, still in possession of his faculties – still, in the largest part, the kind and innocent boy who had challenged a prince to be a better man. For Merlin, then, he must do the hard thing. The right thing. He must be a good man, even if it destroyed the last part of his soul that knew how to hope. He could not allow Merlin to be destroyed by the evil that he had allowed to find safe harbor inside of himself. It was just like putting down a sick dog, to spare them the pain and suffering of wasting away. It was just mercy. And putting off the inevitable would be cruel to both of them._

_Arthur strode to the doors, resolute, and pulled them open to spill light into the hall. He had every intention of calling for guards, of sending them after the boy, of refusing to relent or allow his heart to steer him wrong yet again. Merlin was a killer – he was a sorcerer – he was irredeemable._

_He was sat in a heap on the floor, face turned toward the wall, still not-quite crying. Arthur paused, watching the sunlight wash over his manservant. His hand slid from the handle of the door. Something horrible took up residence in Arthur’s chest, but he pushed it back. It was just easier this way; there wouldn’t have to be a manhunt. “Merlin.”_

_Merlin seemed to stir himself from a great distance, and rolled his head along the stone balustrade to face Arthur. He didn’t move any other part of himself, just his head, as if he hadn’t energy or care left for anything else._

_The odd notion struck Arthur that Merlin’s presence was a self-imposed atonement of some kind. It also occurred to him that Merlin half expected Arthur to come out and condemn him for his crime after all. Or worse, that he_ wanted _Arthur to condemn him, because he couldn’t sufficiently condemn himself. Arthur felt the hard edges retreating from his expression. He was looking at a man – just a man – eyes empty and tired, wracked by the same guilt that Arthur had struggled with himself over the body of his father. There was hopelessness there. Sadness. But there was also a frightening resignation. Maybe he expected Arthur to finish what he had started in Uther’s chamber, by his deathbed. Arthur remembered the denial and panic on Dragoon’s face, his scrabbling to do something, anything – the horror as Uther gasped and finally exhaled his last. And the despair that followed. The stark denial. Something more than just a king had died in that room. How had Arthur not noticed it before?_

_Arthur looked at him, at the nothing in Merlin’s face, and couldn’t hold onto his resolve. Merlin had made the same mistake as Arthur, in the end. He couldn’t condemn his servant without also condemning himself; that was something that Uther had never learned._

_Something roiling within Arthur settled, and he softened his features. “It’s a new day.”_

_Merlin’s eyes flickered past Arthur and into the sunlight as if he hadn’t realized that yet – as if the glow had been beyond his notice until Arthur mentioned it, or as if he’d somehow assumed that it came from Arthur, rather than from the sun. The eastern warmth highlighted the redness of Merlin’s eyes, the bruising of exhaustion beneath them, and the stark, awful lack of affect in his expression. Abruptly, Merlin’s pupils focused, and he pushed himself to his feet._

_“Have you been here all night?”_

_Merlin seemed to skip a beat at that, as if he’d expected something entirely different, and had stood only so that he could say he’d met it on his feet. “I didn’t want you to feel that you were alone.”_

_Arthur lifted his chin, a prickling in his own eyes threatening whatever lingering anger he may have had left. He nodded, just a bob of his head, barely there. “You are a loyal friend, Merlin.”_

_Merlin inhaled, a soft and fast thing, and swayed back from him, his gaze falling. Something in his face told Arthur that he disagreed._

_Arthur looked down too, and took a few hesitant steps forward. He was doing the right thing, now. He had to believe that. Looking at Merlin, at the same bare guilt that Arthur couldn’t show himself, he knew that he was doing the right thing. He turned away and looked back at the body of his father limned in light on its stone bed. Uther made his own son out of magic, and when he didn’t like the price, he exacted a terrible retribution. Whatever the official story, Arthur could see how he tore his own kingdom in two in the process. It was fitting, perhaps, that in the end, magic claimed him too. Arthur would not repeat his mistakes. He reached out to either side as if embracing the light, and grasped the edges of both doors to pull them shut, cutting off the luminescence. What was done could not be undone. They would leave it where it lay._

_Arthur sucked in a deep breath through his nose as he turned and regarded Merlin, still standing wary and uncertain behind him. “You must be hungry.”_

_It was only a tiny thing, the softening of Merlin’s features. But it was there. His voice wavered and cracked from disuse and gratitude both when he replied, “Starving.”_

_Arthur let his mouth gentle, almost a smile. “Me too.” He swallowed, and burst into motion. “Come on. You can make us some breakfast.”_

_Merlin rotated on his feet as if helpless to resist being drawn to follow Arthur. Maybe Arthur wasn’t the enchanted one between them. Maybe it was Merlin, hopelessly tied to Arthur, who couldn’t help himself. They climbed the steps in a comfortable silence, and Arthur made a vow to himself then. He would not abuse Merlin’s loyalty – his magic. Ever. He would have to protect both of them from the temptation of it, because if anything like this ever happened again, it was Merlin who would suffer for it, not Arthur. He could never allow himself to forget that._

* * *

Arthur waited for the dull throbbing near his groin to fade, a bruise already blossoming in the shape of the heel of Merlin’s boot, before calling for George to clean up the mess of his chambers. Under other circumstances, the look on George’s face and the abrupt fading of his ever-so-proper greeting would have been comical. As it was, Arthur merely creased his lips with a faint sick feeling and ordered the man to say nothing to anyone about any of it. Then left the man staring with wide eyes up to the black smoke rings on the ceiling.

The practice field was dark when Arthur stepped out onto it, practice dummies lined up in a neat row as if waiting to be beaten into a pile of straw and splinters, just for Arthur. He already had a staff in his hand when the notion struck him that this was exactly what Merlin could never do. He could never let off steam, never find himself a safe outlet, never purge all of the awful things in his head by unleashing his anger onto an inanimate object. Arthur paused and stared at the blank, featureless head of a straw man. If Merlin ever unleashed his temper, he wouldn’t just incinerate one practice dummy. He’d raze half the countryside. This luxury, this…release. It would never, ever be an option for Merlin. He could never lose his cool, never find solace in blind exertion, never release the violent tension. To Arthur’s knowledge, he had never tried, and he honestly wondered what that kind of constant restraint could do to a man who _felt_ the way that Merlin did. Passionately. With all his heart.

Arthur stepped back, the staff sliding across his palm to roll off his fingertips.

It wasn’t all that difficult to find Merlin; several of the guards had taken note of him flying through the corridors as if being chased, but they were used to that. Merlin was constantly late for everything, and careened about the halls at all hours as a matter of course. He’d managed to get rather far, though, so Arthur had plenty of time to replay what had happened in his chambers, and he didn’t like the conclusions he’d come to. He had assumed at the time that the outburst stemmed from some combination of anger and loss – from Merlin losing his temper. But Merlin never lost his temper; Arthur wasn’t sure he even had one, and with good reason. He would be more than deadly if he had. No, that wasn’t anger in Arthur’s chambers. It was nothing so simple.

The western wall was only lightly garrisoned, being the tallest and facing no roads. Arthur nodded to the sentry he passed and stepped out onto the battlements. A soft wind whipped his hair to flop from one side of his skull to the other, and he paused to consider what he was doing. What he had already done. This could end, now. Arthur could turn around, go back to his chambers, and never speak of this night again. Merlin would appear in the morning, or not, and they would go on exactly as they always had: king and servant. Proper and separate, divided by station.

Alone.

Arthur had wanted so badly to figure Merlin out, to _know_ him, to share burdens with someone who understood the loneliness. But if he did this – if he kept walking forward out into the night atop the wall – it would change…everything. Arthur had become proficient at being lonely, and he knew that he stood in great risk of following his father’s path, but it was familiar. He knew how to be this – he had been raised and trained from birth to be a king, aloof and stood shining atop the whole kingdom. But no one had taught him to be just a man. Of the only people who had ever come close to trying, one was dead and buried beneath a hilltop of flowers, and the other was up here, in front of him. A siege perilous. And Arthur was not adequate to it.

The wind gusted gently and carried the scent of the watch fires to his nostrils, dry wood smoke like war camps at night. Arthur looked down from the wall, to the roof of the garrison barracks. He had never been a friend to Merlin. He had never accepted the responsibility that came with friendship. He had been a prince and a king, and he had risked his life for that of his subject. He had sparred with Merlin, teased him, engaged in horseplay. He had cared, but he had not risked caring too much. It would pain him if Merlin were ever gone, but it would not devastate him. Or at least, not any worse than had his sister’s betrayal, or his father’s murder, or his wife’s corruption.

Something inside of him whispered _liar_. He had thought Merlin gone once, collarbone smashed in with a mace, and a fall of rock between them. And when his patrols had not found him, had reported him taken and likely dead, Arthur had ridden out himself in defiance of the thought. He’d have gone alone if he had to. The king, in quest after a servant he refused to let lie. A servant he refused to casually acknowledge as anything more than staff, but for whom he had risked his life and crown to keep. His actions always had betrayed him, hadn’t they? But only as selfishness. He had let Merlin bear the burden of whatever existed between them, and had strung him along with the odd comment or acknowledgement. But Arthur had never assumed responsibility for Merlin, for his personal wellbeing, as a friend should have done in return. _That’s not how friendship works._ Clothes and heroic lifesaving, and the dubious privilege of being allowed to steal Arthur’s leftovers from dinner were not enough. Even the royal dogs received that level of regard from Arthur. It did not equal a friendship. And worst of all, Merlin apparently knew that.

Why, then, did he let Arthur get away with it? He hadn’t always; Arthur remembered being challenged over it plenty of times. But he’d only been a prince then. Was it just because of his rank? Or was the little that Arthur gave somehow all that Merlin thought he should have?

Arthur stepped across the stones, down toward the walkway, and out onto the battlements. When he reached Merlin where he sat huddled with his back pressed to the stone wall, Arthur paused. Merlin had his arms crossed over drawn-up knees, face dropped down into the crooks of his elbows. He may have been asleep for all that he didn’t stir at Arthur’s approach. “Merlin.”

Merlin startled badly and nearly fell off of his own bottom. He blinked around and then shook his head at Arthur’s knees before looking up, face still muzzy with interrupted sleep coupled with a deeper exhaustion, even as he paled. “Sire.”

“You shouldn’t let people sneak up on you like that.” Arthur shook out his cloak and draped it over Merlin’s shoulders before stepping over him to get a better view of the moon over the forest. “If I’d been a bandit, you’d be dead.” He glanced down to find Merlin fiddling with the hem of the cloak as if he weren’t entirely certain that he should be wearing it and not mending it, or putting it back on Arthur. “At least the rain’s stopped.”

Merlin blinked at him and gave an aborted head shake, as if in silent demand to know what he was going on about now.

“You know, I’ve been thinking.” Arthur waited a moment for sass that didn’t come, and then said, “Yes, I was careful not to hurt myself, thank you Merlin. As I was saying, I’ve been thinking.” He shuffled at the stone beneath his feet and then lowered himself down to mirror Merlin’s pose with a soft groan of relief at taking the strain from his lower back. He really shouldn’t fall asleep in his chair anymore. “And I have a question for you.”

There was no response, and Arthur looked to his left just to be certain that he still had Merlin’s attention. A pair of frightened, wide eyes gazed back. It took Merlin two tries to force out a word from what sounded like a cottoned mouth. “What?”

“What on earth could make a man loath himself as much as you seem to do?”

Merlin just stared at him.

Arthur nodded and looked away; he’d suspected that neither of them could answer that, so there wasn’t any point in pursuing it. “That wasn’t normal, what happened in my chambers. If it were, you’d have been caught by now.” He rested his head back against the parapet and rolled his neck until he could see Merlin from the corner of his eye.

Merlin was picking at loose threads along the hem of the cloak now, gently unraveling them. His voice dry and barely audible, he replied, “Sorry.”

“I’m not asking for an apology.” Arthur took a moment to absorb the thickened northwoods peasant’s accent slurring the few words that Merlin had said, as if Merlin were drunk, or had forgotten himself. He looked down and worried at his own fingertips. “Merlin, look. What happened upstairs, what I did…”

“It’s fine.” Merlin hunched in on himself and scrubbed his hands across his knees. “I know it didn’t mean anything.”

Arthur watched him for a moment. “I had to calm you down. Break whatever was going on there before you hurt yourself or set the castle on fire. It was either…that…what I did, or a good knock upside the head, and I think you’ve had enough of the latter.”

Merlin nodded, his chest spasming with some kind of hiccup. “Yeah.”

This wasn’t going exactly how Arthur had expected. “Are you alright? I didn’t hurt you?”

“No, it’s fine,” Merlin told him, voice a bit vacant. Faint.

“Is it?” Arthur frowned and peered more closely at him, trying and failing to catch his eye. “I committed a trespass that in other circumstances might have been unforgiveable.”

Merlin started to say something that twisted his features briefly in some kind of disgust, but it was fleeting, and he merely shook his head.

That brief glimpse of revulsion disturbed Arthur more than he cared to admit. “I don’t want this to come between us.”

“You don’t have to keep going on about it.” Merlin shifted and tried to be unobtrusive about adjusting his trousers, or more likely the stickiness. He was still wearing the same thing he’d left in, after all. “I already know your opinion on it. It’s not like I’m going to forget just because…” He flapped a hand, too large and full of fingers longer and thinner than most. “…that happened.”

“You should change before that dries,” Arthur told him. “It will be uncomfortable if you wait too long.”

“Too late for that,” Merlin muttered. He squirmed a bit. Any man of a certain age knew that dance; his indiscretions had gone tacky already.

Arthur chuckled a bit. “Yeah.” He gazed up at the sky and the curls of smoke reaching in lazy columns toward the stars. “What do you mean, my opinion?” He frowned. “I’ve not given you one, have I?”

“Why are you even here?” Merlin demanded abruptly, rather than answer. “Shouldn’t you be calling guards or something? Arresting me?”

Arthur let out a burst of laughter. “For what?”

“For _what_?” Merlin huffed at him. “I could have killed you.”

“But you didn’t,” Arthur replied reasonably.

“It was magic.”

“Yes,” Arthur drawled. “I had noticed.” He smiled and quirked an eyebrow, but Merlin was looking down again, face pinched. Arthur sighed. “Why didn’t you go to his burial?”

Merlin resumed picking at the hem of the cloak, fingernails plucking at threads like the beaks of birds. “Gaius’s family is from Gaul, across the sea. Roman or something. He wanted his death rights to be like theirs, his…clan or tribe, I don’t know what they’re called.”

Arthur nodded his encouragement. “Surely you were permitted to attend.”

Merlin’s lip curled, more a sickly expression than one of aversion. “He was to be burned.” Merlin swallowed thickly, lips pursed to hold in whatever additional reaction he didn’t want Arthur to see, and focused with an unnatural fervor on the distraction of the cloak threads.

Arthur quickly looked away and breathed a moment, because even though Merlin wouldn’t come out directly and say it, he hadn’t gone because he couldn’t watch a sorcerer burn, not even a dead one, and certainly not one he’d loved. That was Arthur’s fault. Uther’s originally, perhaps, but it was Arthur’s Camelot now. So it was down to him to own its sins. He saw Merlin swallowing repeatedly in his periphery, head bowed a little lower now, mouth open to breath through the congestion of his grief. Arthur gave an aborted shake of his head, his own eyes burning, but he had no right. No right at all. Instead, he reached out and hooked Merlin by the neck.

Merlin went willingly this time, no resistance, all but falling against Arthur with his forehead landing in a thump against Arthur’s drawn up knees. His back heaved under Arthur’s hand. “I’m so tired.” The words cracked and he huddled against Arthur without touching him back, arms wrapped over his own stomach as if to hold his insides where they belonged.

Arthur nodded and ducked his own head, chin resting at the crown of Merlin’s head. His hair smelt of woodsmoke and lightning. It smelled nothing like his sweet Guinevere, and yet it reminded him of her just the same. Perhaps it was just the warmth of another body against his, or his lips resting against someone’s hair. “I know.” He let his voice waver because it was only fair. In an echo of the words that Merlin had once said to him, Arthur breathed, “I don’t want you to feel that you’re alone.”

And finally, something in Merlin seemed to break, or perhaps simply let go. He went pliant against Arthur, his breaths ragged, body trembling only enough to feel like shivering in the chill night air. Grief was a quiet thing, Arthur realized. It didn’t rage or destroy. It wasn’t the terrible force of a purge. It was just this, acceptance and loss, and taking comfort in the ones who were still there.

Eventually, Merlin stilled, but he didn’t move away. He just breathed the fabric of Arthur’s clothes, motionless except for the expansion and contraction of his ribcage, bones like sticks in a row down his back. Whatever tears still fell, they were just an afterthought, leftovers draining out into the hush before the dawn. Arthur let the damp seep into the fabric of his trousers, and thanked the tact of the patrols that avoided that wall while they sat there, a king and a peasant devoid of class or rank, waiting for the new day.

* * *

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Non-graphic sexual content, maybe dub-con depending on how you look at that kind of thing.


	4. Chapter 4

_Arthur stared into the campfire, numb. They had smuggled his wife out of the castle on a cart, covered in linens like a plague body. Now she lay off to one side of the campfire, wrapped in the same linens, face covered, limbs folded close and tied with cords. He couldn’t help thinking that somehow, the cart and the linens were a harbinger, and that he, Arthur, had brought this upon her himself, by using the belladonna, by simulating a death that proved too tempting to the fates not to accept. A stupid notion, as it was Morgana who had brought this down on them. And yet he kept thinking it._

_The water of the cauldron glowed faintly even without a moon to light it, far down below the rim of the caldera where Arthur had managed to carry Merlin before risking a return trip for Guinevere’s body. He should have left her – it was too dangerous to go back alone with a dragon feasting and flapping about, and leaving Merlin unconscious on the open path was just stupid – but he couldn’t leave her there. He couldn’t. It was everything he would have lambasted one of his knights for doing, but Arthur did it anyway._

_Beyond the curve of the shoreline, safely removed from their camp with the whole of the lake between them, the white scales of the little crippled dragon caught and winked at the light as it…ate. As it ate by the light of an absent goddess. Merlin had assured Arthur that it would not come near them again, claiming the knowledge of some little-known passage in an obscure book about dragons not attacking on a full stomach, but Arthur didn’t trust it. He remained awake, facing it, his sword laid out beside him within easy reach. He flinched at each crunch of bone echoing across the cauldron, and the morbid part of him wondered: is that a femur? Is that her skull? Would he even recognize the remains as his sister, afterwards, at all?_

_Merlin stirred in his arms, wrenching Arthur from his absorbed distraction. Oddly, Arthur found himself wishing for Mordred’s calm company – the odd healing touch that Mordred called a Druid’s simple skill, and that Arthur pointedly did_ not _call magic. They could have used it now. Arthur’s wrist and forearm throbbed in time with his pulse, and Merlin –_

_Arthur shifted and tried to settle Merlin more comfortably. Mordred was dead, and by Arthur’s word no less, witting or not. There was no help anymore that he could give either of them. To wish otherwise… That was just foolish._

_He rearranged them both on the ground, trying simultaneously to keep Merlin propped up so that there was minimal pressure on the wound just above and behind his left ear, and to be free enough to roll him off and grab his sword quickly in case the dragon – or anything else, for that matter – attacked. He should have known it was bad by how long it took Arthur to rouse him after he slipped off the side of the path, but they were in a hurry, and Gwen was starting to fight her way out of sedation above them, and Arthur wasn’t thinking straight. Besides, once he’d managed to kick at Merlin hard enough to bring him around, he’d seemed fine other than the blood and a headache. It occurred to Arthur, though, that Merlin didn’t allow himself to sleep that night, and that for the next day’s journey, he’d been silent and more mindful of his footing than caution alone could excuse. That was the way of head wounds, sometimes, though. It could take a day or two to show its true severity._

_The dragon screeched, a shrill, sharp echo ricocheting off the face of the rocks like a banshee’s cry, and Arthur jumped, clutching Merlin and his sword both a little too tightly until he confirmed that it wasn’t coming toward them. He let go of the sword and strained to reach the firewood piled to one side. It was stupid, how he couldn’t make himself put Merlin aside even long enough to feed the fire – weak, his father would say – but Merlin was the only thing left to him in this gods-forsaken place that he might still be able to save. He allowed his gaze to flicker out onto the still water where the depths pulsed with a faint, eerie white light. He wasn’t sure which was worse: that Guinevere had never even touched the water, or that Merlin had finally_ – finally _– revealed himself a sorcerer when he cast a shield to ward off the dragon’s fire._

_Merlin twitched again, and this time, when Arthur looked down, he found slits of pale iris peering back. The relief was a sharp pain in Arthur’s chest. “Merlin!” He angled Merlin upright, one hand on his chest to steady him, and scooted around so that they faced each other. “Here. Drink this.” Arthur pressed a water skin into Merlin’s hands and then lifted his hands by the wrists to reinforce the command._

_Merlin seemed confused, his eyes darting around the darkness as he drank, silent and obedient, at Arthur’s behest._

_Once the skin was empty, Arthur pried it from Merlin’s somewhat fumbling fingers and set it aside. “How are you feeling?” He paused, waiting, but when Merlin merely blinked at something near Arthur’s right ear, he added, “You passed out. Do you remember? The – the light was there, but I didn’t know how to ask it for more help.” Arthur swiped lightly at Merlin’s nostril, where thick black fluid had seeped out in a gloppy string as the light from the lake touched him. When Merlin merely wrinkled his nose, and then his whole cheek before swiping at the air as if shooing a gnat, Arthur grasped him by a shoulder and gave him a light shake. “Merlin! Come on, you never stop talking.”_

_Merlin opened his mouth, faltered, and took several deep breaths before inscribing something nonsensical in the air between them. He shook his head, looked past Arthur again as if he couldn’t focus on him, and finally said, “Arthur.”_

_“Yes.” Arthur nodded, and realized with a pang that he couldn’t recall being this terrified in a long time. He breathed carefully through the clench of his chest and leaned to try and catch Merlin’s gaze. “That’s right. Do you remember what happened? The magic – do you remember it touching you?” Black and hideous from out of Guinevere’s body, creeping like thready vines up Merlin’s fingers and smelling of sulfur and tar. “You said something about mandrake. Is it gone now?”_

_Far away along the shoreline, the crippled little white dragon had apparently finished its feast and was now scratching about in the dirt the way a lizard might to make a warm bowl nest to sleep in. Merlin’s eyes remained riveted on it, wide but unfocused. He weaved enough where he sat that Arthur reached out to steady him as he slurred, “Aithusa.”_

_Arthur shook his head and fought to modulate his voice. “Dragon,” he corrected. He had no idea what Merlin had meant to say, but the last thing either of them needed right then was a panic._

_Merlin’s eyes tracked unseeing across the barren, dark landscape of the cauldron, and finally came to rest on Arthur, voice insistent as he repeated, “Aithusa.”_

_“Alright,” Arthur said, nodding in a manner sure to betray just how much this affected him. “That’s fine. Do you know where we are?”_

_Merlin took a breath as if to respond, and then blinked it back without making a sound, as if the words had been right there and then vanished._

_Arthur forced himself to stay calm. “Do you remember why we left the castle?”_

_“Gwen?” Merlin looked around again, but he seemed to have trouble keeping his head up. His chin kept bobbing down to glance off of his chest._

_Arthur couldn’t do this. Not this, with his wife lying dead just a few feet away, less than a day gone. “Merlin?” He directed Merlin’s gaze back to his own with his fingers not quite touching Merlin’s cheek. But once he had Merlin’s attention, wavering as it was, he couldn’t think of what else to say._

_“Something’s wrong.”_

_Arthur snorted, wet and completely obvious that he wasn’t holding himself together at all. He let out a short, hysterical laugh. Rather than enumerate all of the things that supported that statement, Arthur said, “You fell off the path, do you remember? We were coming to the – “_

_“ – mountains.” Merlin nodded._

_But Arthur shook his head. “No, the – the cauldron, Merlin. Do you remember?”_

_The little dragon squealed again, and Arthur startled badly enough that it knocked him off the balls of his feet. He landed on his arse, fingers already clamped around the grip of his sword, and then surged to his feet. The dragon still wasn’t paying them any mind; it had curled into its dirt bowl and was chirping up at the sky. Or maybe it was just talking to itself; it was hard to tell. At least it continued to pay them no mind as it cleaned its face and claws like a cat, though it didn’t get all of the pink off._

_When Arthur looked back, Merlin’s eyes were huge and fixed on the dragon. It confused Arthur at first because clearly, Merlin had the ability to make it stay back. But then he looked at Arthur, and it struck him; Merlin was afraid of_ Arthur. _As far as Merlin knew, Arthur had only just discovered that Merlin was a sorcerer. Here, today. “It’s alright.”_

_Or maybe that wasn’t it at all. “Morgana.” Merlin started to get up, but his legs wouldn’t hold him and he was barely steady enough to even sit up. “Arthur – ”_

_“Easy, Merlin.” That surprised him a bit; he had expected something about the magic, an apology maybe – not Morgana. “It’s alright.”_

_“No! Aithusa.” Merlin fumbled up to his knees and then Arthur had to catch at him before he toppled sideways into the fire. “Followed, she followed us – ”_

_“Not anymore,” Arthur insisted. “Look, will you just stop? You’re going to hurt yourself.”_

_“She can’t hurt you – you have to get Gwen – !”_

“Mer _lin!” Arthur struggled to keep him from scrambling off, not that he would get far in his present condition. He was clumsy like a newborn colt on a good day, and this was pointedly_ not _a good day. “Calm down! No one is going to hurt me.” He hooked Merlin’s arm from behind and yanked him back down, trying desperately to be gentle lest he aggravate an already serious head injury. “Stop – stop,_ stop!” _He didn’t know exactly when the quality of the struggling changed, but it hit him abruptly, like a mace to the chest, that Merlin wasn’t fighting him anymore; he was seizing._

Oh gods, oh gods _…. Arthur didn’t know what to do._

_Eventually, he worked one of his gloves between Merlin’s teeth like a horse bridle bit, and then just tried to contain the convulsions, which was an exercise in futility. He didn’t pray, even though he thought he was supposed to, but he had no idea what to ask for, or who to ask it of anymore._

_When it finally ended, Arthur thought for a moment that Merlin’s unnatural stillness signaled death, and he recalled panicking – truly panicking and throwing around the few belongings he had bothered to salvage from the ridiculous pile of bags he had forced Merlin to carry up here, scrambling fruitlessly through everything within reach, including rocks and dirt, as if something there could miraculously be used to raise the dead. At some point, he ended up huddled against Guinevere’s body with Merlin clutched like a doll to his chest, his fingers shaking with palsy where he held his vambrace up against Merlin’s mouth, counting the fogs of his breath on the metal until dawn._

_Merlin woke with the sun, groggy and disoriented, but lucid. He could answer questions again, and he met Arthur’s gaze, but he didn’t remember arriving at the cauldron, or anything from the previous day. Even the journey out from Camelot, while he knew the reason for the quest and details of their route, seemed hazy. Merlin knew that he’d fallen but he seemed to jumble the memory up with something else involving Mordred – he insisted that Mordred had followed them with a coil of rope, and helped them climb back to the path. When Merlin finally noticed the wrapped body behind them, it took everything that Arthur had not to break down as he watched the realization wash over Merlin’s face that they had failed. At least one of them was spared the vivid recollection. But maybe that was worse, in a way. He had never heard Merlin howl before. It was... He wished he could unhear it._

_In the end, Arthur told him as little as possible of what had transpired in the cauldron. Most of it, Arthur couldn’t quite force from his lips anyway. As a result, he also said nothing of the Dolma’s failed disguise, or of Merlin revealing himself as both a sorcerer and a dragonlord. Arthur tried to tell himself that it was kindness, or that it would give Merlin a chance to reveal his magic on his own terms – a right that he had surely earned by now – but Arthur already knew by then that Merlin would never tell him of his own accord. It was cowardice that stayed Arthur’s tongue, and nothing more._

_For once, Arthur let himself be a coward. It was easier to just let it lie, and really – who was it going to hurt?_

_* * *_

Arthur blinked himself awake sometime around early evening, which was already shamefully lazy of him, but he couldn’t possibly have functioned two nights in a row with no rest. He spent a moment taking stock of himself, mildly surprised at how sore he was in places from grappling with _Merlin_ , of all people, the night prior. There was probably some liniment oil in one of his cupboards, or an arnica paste somewhere.

The second thing he noticed probably should have come first, and perhaps should have startled or upset him more than it did. He had managed to coax Merlin to clean himself up, and then poured him into the royal bed once again after they stumbled in from the battlements, and while Arthur hadn’t quite intended _this_ , he had climbed right in after him, too exhausted to bother worrying about it any further than who got which pillows. The blankets were thick and warm around them, and at some point, Arthur had migrated toward the heavy heat next to him. He didn’t move now other than to shift an arm out from where he’d crooked it under his head, and calmly regarded the crown of dark hair less than two inches from his nose.

Merlin was facing away, rolled half onto his back with his shoulder pressed into Arthur’s chest and his knees drawn up a bit. His face angled sharply away, though, and mostly into the pillow with his chin biting into his shoulder. Both of his hands extended in front of his face, forearms together, elbows crooked, and he snuffled into the cradle of his fingers against the pillow the way a child might. Arthur wasn’t embracing him or anything so simple as that, but he had draped one arm over Merlin’s ribcage, and each time Merlin inhaled, his expanding stomach brushed the pads of Arthur’s fingers.

Arthur watched his muscles tick like the flank of an overworked horse, restless with short bursts of tension and release. That must have been what woke him. Arthur waffled over the whole situation for a moment. Propriety dictated that he remove himself from Merlin’s person, but some other, less defined part of him coaxed him to stay where he was, a loose comma protecting Merlin’s back with Arthur’s wrist and Merlin’s shoulder being the only points of proper contact between them.

It had been so long since Arthur felt warm like this – since he could say that he was not alone in an intimate space. He wanted to feel guilt at relishing the body of another curled into Guinevere’s place, or disgust at himself for the direction his thoughts bent – not because Merlin was a servant, or even a man, but because he was simply not the wife that Arthur had once professed to love more than his own kingdom. It was only an ache, however, that greeted him when he considered the body before him – a chaste longing for a trusted and known companion – someone he had chosen as kin– in a place that had sat cold and empty for far too long.

Arthur was leaning forward before he thought about doing it, or the ramifications that might come from such an act after what had happened the night before, but he couldn’t help himself. His hand curled in the manner of a corpse after death, muscles contracting into rigor until his palm laid flat and firm in the soft hollow near Merlin’s diaphragm, fingerpads bent inward against the warm cotton tunic. Arthur bowed his head as well until his brow touched the soft hair at Merlin’s crown, and he could smell hair and herbs and sweat, and something sour like despair. He closed his eyes when he realized that last was less a scent and more a feeling welling up in himself than emanating from Merlin’s skin. He couldn’t have this. Arthur forced himself to remember that. He wasn’t allowed to have this, like this – not with Merlin.

Merlin seemed not to notice the movement at his back, still fidgeting through whatever dream had caught him, and Arthur risked inhaling, deep and slow, at the nape of Merlin’s neck. He ran his hand higher, up the centerline of Merlin’s chest, until he could feel the heart beating against his palm, a thick rhythm like a drumbeat in molasses to count the passage of time, and the loss of innocence that comes with age. Arthur was not innocent; he had not been so for a very long time. Merlin, however, possessed that kind of mien that seemed to retain some shadow of purity, like a wraith trapped within the flesh. Battered, maybe. Precarious. But there, still, in the sadness that had crept in, and the shine that had faded from his eyes.

If Arthur were a poet or a spiritual man, he might wax on about the withering of the boy within the man, or the necessary, dark choices of life that extinguish the wonder of the world.  But he wasn’t a poet, and he’d seen enough of the divine to see past the enchantment of it. Merlin was no more innocent still than Arthur; he simply possessed a young enough face to mimic it, and a kind enough soul to suffer the loss of it for the rest of his life in a manner that men like Arthur were spared.

Arthur rubbed his nose into warm skin and held himself as still as he could, a weight sunk into the mattress, oddly devoid of tension. Merlin quieted a bit and Arthur felt him sigh in his sleep, pulling Arthur with him when he furled himself into a tighter ball against the chill, drafty air. Arthur ebbed and flowed against his back with each breath they took out of synch with each other. He felt adrift, and wondered if this were peace – if this was what death would feel like. It was horribly morbid, to equate this comfort with fatality, but he wanted to think that this might be what Guinevere felt – this warmth, and this presence – this feeling that maybe men were not doomed to loneliness at the last. She had died…unkindly. Arthur didn’t want that to follow her to wherever she had gone. He didn’t want her to be alone, where she was.

He thought briefly of his father, and the Stones of Nemeton, and how death had stripped him down to his bare disappointment. His malice. His madness, until even his own son wasn’t safe from his wrath. Would Guinevere, divested of all artifice, be gentle and kind again? Or would she be sadness and disillusionment and…and grey the way that Arthur feared he himself might become?

Arthur shook his head because he couldn’t dwell on this – he couldn’t keep living in this place where he fought his despair like a serpent in every moment of quiet. And neither could Merlin. There was a broken harmony to their suffering – a dissonant, keening chord. It occurred to Arthur that they were both isolated, somehow – Merlin in his fear and his façade, a frantic unchanging effort to never be seen, never be known, and Arthur in the mantle of king. It was, on balance, much the same thing.

Merlin twitched again and his breath hitched before he began to absently scratch and brush his hands together, fumbling and limp with the broken paralysis of sleep, the movements understated but clear – he was trying to brush something off, claw it off, push it away back down his arms and off the ends of his fingers. Arthur only recognized it because it had often invaded his own sleep in the days immediately following Guinevere’s death – Merlin trying to lift Guinevere’s enchantment by force, desperate, with Morgana’s still-twitching, gasping body a blur in Arthur’s periphery, the whisper of aftermath spun in a rise of fetid encants in the air, and Morgana choking-laughing on her last breaths, _Emrys_ , as if amused by some irony. And the oily black of the magic crawling up Merlin’s arms like vines or tiny snakes, shiny like tar with a screech like a banshee that jarred Arthur so badly that he had forgotten Guinevere, and his sister, and all common sense in favor of dragging Merlin away from his wife’s writhing body because he could see with terrible clarity that Merlin intended to pull it all into himself to spare her, if that were the only way, and Arthur couldn’t – he _couldn’t_. It wasn’t even a choice, but if it had been, he knew he would do it again because it might have freed Guinevere, but it would not have saved her, and even Arthur could see that much at the last. She would not want Merlin to die with her, not just for that. It was the last gift Arthur could give her, to not send her friend pointlessly into the abyss after her to feed her guilt beyond the veil at being unable to stop herself destroying him too.

Arthur shook off the memory and the sting in his eyes both, and tightened the arm that he had slung around Merlin’s torso. “Merlin, wake up.” His mind flashed back to a frantic scramble down a cliffside, rocks dislodged, his wrist throbbing and swollen as he clawed at the straps of packs and bags slung all around Merlin’s limp body, blood flowing sluggish from his hairline, shiny and damp stains wetting dark hair, _Wake up wake up wake up_ – “ _Mer_ lin.” Arthur wrapped his hand over Merlin’s wrists – boney angles and thin skin – and stopped him struggling against something that was no longer there. “Wake up, now. Merlin.”

Merlin coiled in around himself under the blankets, twisting his face into the pillow, as if protecting his soft underbelly from a wild boar. Arthur grabbed him by the shoulder and when Merlin made an odd noise and flailed at him, Arthur caught one of the rogue hands. Abruptly, everything went still, Merlin’s body tense and stiffly held in place, and Arthur peered down into wild eyes set in a slack, blank face. “Arthur.”

It didn’t sound like a question, but Merlin’s face said it might be that, so he nodded. “Yeah. You alright?”

Merlin nodded far too quickly to be convincing, and removed his hand from Arthur’s grip with a haste that betrayed his lingering discomfort, or maybe fear. The rush, certainly, had not subsided yet – pounding heart, cold sweat, uneven and forced breathing…

“Must have been some dream,” Arthur offered.

“Must have been, yeah.” Merlin angled himself away and managed to disentangle himself from the twist of sheets wrung around his legs like wet laundry, though he visibly shook when he did.

“Do you remember it?” He mostly only asked because he knew that Merlin recalled very little of what happened at the Cauldron of Arianrhod, and if this were a new memory, he had to wonder what else might have come back to him over the past year.

Merlin hesitated, seeming to curl a bit where he lay on his back; Arthur felt Merlin’s stomach muscles grow taut with tension where his hand rested, unobtrusive. Arthur thought about withdrawing, but he didn’t feel as if the proximity were unwelcome. Eventually, Merlin admitted, “There were black things crawling up my arms.” He brushed at the backs of his hands again in a movement that seemed reflexive. “Trying to get inside.”

Arthur swallowed, because he had wondered what those things might have done, had the goddess on the lake not intervened. “Inside where?”

But Merlin shook his head against the pillow, hair catching friction to rise like a halo behind his head. His voice just a whisper, he replied, “I don’t know.” Then he shrugged, a forced and abbreviated jerk of his shoulders, wholly unconvincing. “It was just a dream.”

Arthur maybe should have told him that it wasn’t just a dream, but something stayed his tongue. He hadn’t told Merlin the worst details of that day – the dragon belching out a scorching line of fire along the rocks, Morgana appearing over the ridgeline, Guinevere… She had been so close to stepping into the water. So, so close to still being with them.

At first, Arthur _couldn’t_ tell him about it – the Dolma’s glamour sloughing away as Merlin roared at the dragon in a language that sounded like it grated out from a grind of rocks in Merlin’s throat, or Guinevere falling in a rough tumble back onto the bank, yanked away from salvation by Morgana’s perverted magic. He couldn’t force the words past his tongue, as if it were swollen and burnt by that day. Later, Arthur didn’t tell him because he didn’t _want_ to – because the thought of that day hurt, and he didn’t see why they should both suffer the memory of it if one could be spared. Arthur still had nightmares – vivid, visceral things heavy with the metallic scents of blood and magic and death, and Morgana whispering, _Emrys…Emrys…_ over and over like something broken and stuck, her voice a series of soft gasps of laughter as she died, her madness the only the part of her that remained to the last breath.

Arthur shuddered and reached down to bring the coverlet back up to keep out the chill. It had more to do with the things behind his eyes than with the cool air in the room. The memories tended to creep up on him when he wasn’t paying attention. Merlin clawing the black bind of Morgana’s magic from Guinevere’s convulsing body…Merlin killing Morgana, finally killing her in a spitting rage the likes of which Arthur had never seen in him before, and then sobbing hysterical over her corpse after it was all over, after Arthur dragged him back from the piercing light on the shoreline and collapsed, unable to look at any of them as the horror sank in. The magnitude of it. There had been red wheels raised in welts on Merlin’s skin like ropes up his fingers and the backs of his hands, curling and reaching up his forearms where the black oily things had latched onto him for purchase as Merlin dragged them out of Guinevere, savage and desperate. Powerful.

Arthur had not forgotten what he saw that day – _how_ he saw it – because it painted such a stark picture of the Merlin that Arthur did not know. The one he wanted to know. The Merlin that terrified him to his core for the incomprehensibility of the power he must be capable of wielding, held dormant in a fumbling, meek servant’s frame. How did he even fit into his own skin?

The soft calling of his name broke Arthur from the thoughts that threatened to consume him, and he looked down to where he had bunched his hands up into fists in Merlin’s tunic to drag him closer – to keep anything from snatching him away. Merlin had threaded his fingers into the cracks between Arthur’s as if to sooth him, blunt nails answering Arthur’s need to dig in and hang on. It took several deep, measured breaths to bleed the excess tension from Arthur’s frame and he loosened his grip enough that Merlin could properly cover the backs of Arthur’s hands with his own and squeeze.

Arthur ducked his head and swallowed, but he couldn’t seem to manage the apology that he suspected he owed for getting lost just then. He tensed and twitched his hands back, but not far enough to dislodge Merlin’s hold. He should apologize, he thought – apologize and withdraw. Maintain his distance. He felt the long fingers – softer than a servant’s should be, mostly bone and knuckle – loosen and slide away a bit, giving Arthur an out. Waiting, Arthur thought, for the inevitable rejection, because this… This was not what Merlin was for. This was not…

Without thinking about it, Arthur let his fists slacken and his hands fall apart to rest open on Merlin’s chest. He was looking down at the jut of tendons on the backs of his own hands, calloused palms rough on the soft white linen of the tunic that Arthur had all but bullied Merlin into just a few short hours ago with the sun new in the sky, a spear of light through the curtains. Arthur scrunched the fabric between thumbs and forefingers, aware of Merlin breathing steady before him, chest a gentle susurration against his hands. Too steady. He wondered what he might see if he looked up, but he was too afraid that the look on Merlin’s face would edge too close to that mask of the dutiful servant that he had taken to wearing so often since…

…since.

Sleepy Merlin smelled gentler, somehow, than daytime Merlin. Like a warm puppy curled on a hearth rug. Arthur could smell it now, the remnants of rest, but beneath that, his nose also picked out sour nightmares and fear and abrupt waking. He flattened his palms over pectorals – lungs and sweet breathing, life. He was taking liberties and he knew it, Merlin’s hands still resting light over Arthur’s like permission. Acceptance? Friendship? Or duty to his king? Arthur didn’t know anymore. He let his hands smooth the linen over collarbones and up shoulders, Merlin’s hands falling to Arthur’s wrists, and then his forearms. Arthur’s eyes followed the path of his hands up, carotid and jugular and tendons, thumbs tracing firm along stubble-rough jawbones, finger pads curling to press on either side of the vulnerable places along the back of the neck, juts of cervical vertebrae, base of skull, his hands a cradle for vulnerable bone.

Arthur stilled, his gaze stuck at the hollow of Merlin’s throat. He watched it ripple as Merlin swallowed. Nerves? Or maybe it was fear. Merlin hadn’t said anything. He hadn’t even moved. It wasn’t natural. Discoloration marred the pale line of his neck and some metallic fear invaded Arthur’s mouth with his saliva, like bile. “Merlin?”

Finally, Merlin moved, his torso curving up to meet Arthur’s elbows, fingers squeezing Arthur’s forearms. His voice hurt Arthur’s ears when it came, it was so gentle. “It’s alright, Arthur. I don’t mind.”

What didn’t he mind? Arthur sucked a sharp breath in through his nose, fingers spasming tighter where they gripped Merlin’s skull, thumbs digging brief and quick into the hard hinge of Merlin’s jaw, inadvertently tilting his chin up. The defenseless stretch of Merlin’s throat glared back at him, yellowed here and there, branded with Arthur’s fingerprints. Arthur thought he might be shaking, but he couldn’t tell, and he couldn’t lift his gaze from that vulnerable hollow along the exposed column of Merlin’s trachea to see if Merlin’s face reflected what Arthur was doing or feeling – to see if he could figure himself out from studying his own expression by the reflection it made in Merlin’s.

Merlin gripped at Arthur’s arm with more purpose and Arthur allowed him to loosen the harsh grip of fingers on one hand, soothe the ache of his knuckles until the stiffness bled out of them. Arthur shouldn’t be doing this. He shouldn’t, but Merlin was so warm. Like spring sun – the way Guinevere had been warm – familiar like muscle aches, and Arthur, he was so, _so_ cold anymore. He let his fingertips scrape light as feathers over the stubble spanned rough over one cheek and only realized that he’d finally moved his eyes when he noticed Merlin’s lips part, chapped and sticking together at the corners –

Arthur fumbled his hands away and flung himself around, away from Merlin, until he’d managed to gain the edge of the mattress and hang his legs over the side. He rocked forward with the last of his momentum and hung there on the edge of the bed, hands dug twisting into the coverlet to anchor himself away. He couldn’t do that to Merlin. It wasn’t fair – it wasn’t _right –_ using him like some kind of stand-in for Guinevere. It was selfish to expect that, to even _ask_.

Neither of them moved for a long stretch of moments, and then the bed jostled and Arthur felt a hand spreading over his back, spanning low between his shoulder blades. He jerked himself out from under Merlin’s touch and let his feet pace him away from the bed until he could lean over the fireplace with his elbows on the mantle and his knuckles pressed hard against his scalp. He could practically hear Merlin’s confused hurt at the rejection, for all that Arthur refused to turn around and face it.

After what felt like an eternity of silence stretched awkward and thin to breaking between them, Merlin rustled around in the bedding. His feet slapped down on stone a moment later, hard enough to hurt, surely, and angry. Arthur chanced a glance over his shoulder to where Merlin was gathering his soiled clothes from the night before, and then fumbling to get his boots on. The soft cream linen of Arthur’s favorite nightshirt hung in unflattering billows from Merlin’s thin frame, and Arthur found himself stuck on his memory of that morning, stumbling in from the cold dawn to find his outer chambers still in shambles. Of fumbling Merlin out of his clothes amidst half-hearted protests and then maneuvering him into Arthur’s like a battle drill.

Merlin finally gave up on his boots and just stood there, hunched shoulders sharp and unhappy, blades of bone pointing toward Arthur like accusations. He took a breath as if to steady himself and Arthur watched him lift a hand to press his thumb into the corner of one eye. He looked defeated.

Arthur looked away again, down between his arms to his socked feet shuffling through wood shavings and a drift of ash from the hearth.

Merlin’s voice sounded across the room like reeds, thin and bent in the wind. “I’m not the one who keeps dragging me into your bed.”

Arthur swallowed, because yes that was all him, and no, he hadn’t bothered _asking_ first. “It won’t happen again,” he promised.

Merlin gave an aborted shake of his head, still hunched with one boot hanging limp from his hand. “That’s not what I meant.” The _why are you doing this?_ remained unspoken, but he may as well have shouted it for how loudly Arthur heard it. “What do you want?”

Guinevere. He wanted Guinevere. But he couldn’t say it without being unnecessarily cruel, and it wasn’t Merlin’s fault that he wasn’t her. That Arthur chose to save him, and not her at the cauldron, no matter how he still believed that trying to save her instead would have meant that both of them died, and Arthur could have only carried one of their bodies back for a proper burial. And it would have been Guinevere’s. What he actually said was, “I don’t want you alone up there.” His mind threw up a vision of Merlin’s body mouldering in the sun alongside Morgana’s, little more than carcasses for a hungry, crippled beast of a dragon, with a scrap of red fabric twisted up in whatever bits of meat might remain. He couldn’t quite banish the image once it found purchase in his thoughts.

Merlin tilted his head like a hunting dog catching a rustle of sound.

“Gaius isn’t there anymore. If something happened…” Arthur looked at the way Merlin’s features crumpled into a sympathetic series of lines – at his stupid face and his stupid ears, and that stupid stretch of hairline that Arthur had seen once too often shining with a slow seep of blood.

Merlin bit his lip and looked down, eyes glistening for a moment before he swallowed it all back again, the loss. “I’ll be fine,” Merlin told him, all earnest eyes and just…something Arthur had never been sure of. Faith? “It’s not your fault, you know. Me being sick.”

Wasn’t it? Arthur didn’t have to make him carry every pack off of the horses – they hadn’t needed every supply, every bag for the three-day hike into the cauldron and back. He’d been petty, and Merlin had only just recovered from being poisoned and thrown into a gully to die like so much refuse. Arthur liked irritating Merlin, teasing him, knocking him around a bit, seeing how far he could push him, but there was a line between horseplay and abuse of power that Arthur still couldn’t quite manage to locate. Empathy wasn’t considered a kingly virtue, and Arthur had never really learned it right. But at least he knew it. Now. All he said though was, “I want you close, where I can keep an eye on you.”

Merlin considered him carefully for a moment, and Arthur wondered how he had ever really mistaken Merlin for a fool. Young once, perhaps. Naïve and inexperienced, yes. But a fool? At Merlin’s frankly dubious look, Arthur rocked on his feet and looked away, eyes sliding closed. From somewhere in front of him, he heard Merlin concede, “I’ll prepare the servant’s chamber, then.”

That wasn’t what Arthur wanted, but he couldn’t say that. It would be mortifying, and the whole notion of it was anathema to being king. It was weak and it was possibly a betrayal of his wife, but she was gone, and Merlin still breathed, and Arthur felt sometimes like he was losing himself to grief and the ghost of his father when no one else was there. “There’s no hearth in there; you’ll freeze.”

Merlin frowned, his eyes flickering past Arthur to the disturbed royal bedding, and then back. “There’s no hearth in my old room either,” he pointed out. “If you’ve been cold, I can make sure the room is kept warmer. It’s just, you hate the warming stones, and last time I put a coal pan at the foot, you forgot it was there and burned yourself.”

Arthur’s lip curled, though whether it was at the reminder of his own clumsiness, or at Merlin’s reluctance to share his bed any longer – well deserved, really – even Arthur didn’t know. “Honestly, Merlin. For once, can you just do what I ask?” He hoped it didn’t sound as much a plea as he felt it was.

Merlin glanced again at the bed, and Arthur watched him suck his lips in between his teeth. Then he mumbled something that sounded like, “I don’t belong there,” and bent down to work at his boots again.

“What was that? You can’t deny your king.” Arthur knew that he was being obnoxious, but it was out before he even registered the words. “You should be grateful, you know. It’s not every servant who gets to sleep in the royal bed.”

Abruptly, Merlin dropped the boot and the foot he’d been trying to cram into it, and straightened again. Then he very deliberately told Arthur, “I am not Guinevere. I cannot take her place. I don’t want to.” His hand went to his throat, and he seemed to miss a beat when his fingers didn’t find his usual neckerchief there to adjust. He diverted and scrubbed at his hair instead, gave up on the boots, and merely tucked them under his arm along with his clothes.

“I never said you should!” The anger came swift, but it felt like an echo, and Arthur could hear himself saying the same thing in the back of his mind – Merlin was not Guinevere, Merlin could never take her place, and how _dare_ he imply that he could ever equal her, as if he thought that now she was gone, it was his duty to be the king’s whore so that Arthur didn’t have to lose face and buy one.

Which was when it came to him, bright like a flash of sound – his hands twisted up in Merlin’s neckerchief, shoving him too hard against the stone wall and shaking, spitting in his face – _That’s not your place! It’s_ never _your place!_ Merlin trying to pry Arthur’s fingers from his throat. Scrabbling away and yelling at Arthur, throwing clothes at him and walking out before Arthur could apologize or even sort out his own drunken, shameful thoughts.

Merlin was looking at him, frozen with his eyes comically wide, when Arthur finally stopped staring past him and focused back on his face. “There’s something behind me, isn’t there.”

Arthur squinted at him.

“How bad is it?” Merlin asked. “No, wait. I don’t want to know. Will it eat me if I move?”

Arthur felt his face creasing into slightly queasy lines, but it was fondness that shaped it. Misplaced, possibly inappropriate affection, given what had occurred over the past night and day, but fondness just the same. Because it was familiar. It was just so… _Merlin_ of him that Arthur couldn’t help a rush of warmth and a sense of blessed, sorely needed, ridiculous familiarity. “There’s nothing behind you, Merlin.”

Merlin narrowed his eyes and tried to look over his shoulder without moving more than necessary.

By the time Merlin started poking at the thick woven wall tapestry with a boot, Arthur couldn’t keep it in anymore. “How far would you have let me go?”

Merlin’s face did something complicated, and he blinked past Arthur as if trying not to look at the bed they’d both vacated.

The reticence made Arthur’s stomach go hollow. He watched Merlin’s shoulders fold in, defensive. “Would you have stopped me?”

It reminded Arthur of sitting around a campfire outside a cave, watching Merlin try to say one thing while his body betrayed his denial. There were times Arthur thought they’d never really left that campfire – that maybe he still sat accused, waiting for a goddess’s condemnation of his lacking character while Merlin lied to his face and looked like he hated himself for it.

Gentle only because he couldn’t manage confident just then, Arthur chided, “Merlin. Would you have stopped me?”

Finally, Merlin screwed his face up, but only at the edges where he must have thought it wouldn’t show. “No,” he croaked, and immediately turned away.

Arthur followed him across the room and jumped himself when his attempt to touch Merlin’s shoulder, to turn him around, startled him further away. “Merlin, stop.”

“I shouldn’t have let you.” Merlin backed off again, skirting around bits of mess from the night before that had escaped Arthur’s admittedly half-arsed effort to tidy up, or at least hide the evidence before going to sleep. Of course, the stench of burning ceiling timbers lingered along with the acrid taste of old magic in the air, and the charred marks on the ceilings did nothing to project an air of normalcy.

But that was not relevant at the moment – Arthur would have someone in to clear it all up later. “I hardly think that’s on you,” Arthur told him, confused. “Merlin, stop.” He reached out again, and though Merlin evaded his hand again, he did stop, chin raised, defiant as he stared at Arthur with eyes gone unexpectedly hard. Arthur stepped back, uneasy at the chill there. “You don’t have to…do that kind of thing,” he hazarded. “I mean, I know last night was…” He tried to sum up the absolute cock-up of the night before with a sweep of his hand. “But you don’t have to – with me – just because I’m the king. You know that?”

Merlin almost sneered, but something else got in the way of it and pulled his face into a more ambiguous line. “I don’t care that you’re the bloody king.” He said it as if _he_ would be the one lowering himself, and not the other way around. But maybe he was, Arthur thought; maybe that was exactly how these things worked. “I’m sorry, alright? I know you don’t want that from me. I just – ”

Arthur cocked his head as Merlin cut himself off, vicious in how he clenched his jaw to stop himself saying anything that might reveal too much. Leaving aside that Arthur had no idea how Merlin got the idea that he might be unwelcome in the bed that _Arthur_ kept dragging him into, he asked, “You just what?”

Oddly fascinated, Arthur watched Merlin’s knuckles go white from the force of the grip he kept on his boot. “What do you think?” he demanded, as if Arthur should know – as if he were transparent, which was a crock – Arthur had never been able to see far beyond _Merlin is lying_ or _Merlin is not happy_ or _Merlin is fine now_ or _Merlin believes in me_. He could see everything that Merlin kept on the surface, but that was barely anything at all.

 _It’s alright, Arthur. I don’t mind._ _I wouldn’t mind…_ The further memory didn’t come quickly or like a hammer; it trickled in like backfill in a trench as Arthur watched Merlin hold back offering anything – anything at all – that might leave him open, or make Arthur react badly. Or at all. Again. He could feel the drunken weakness in his hands as he’d sat and let Merlin dress him, the way the room wobbled more than he thought it should for just a few goblets of mulled wine, the dull rush of not-anger, maybe-disgust, but with himself for being so, _so_ tempted. _I would, though…If you wanted. I wouldn’t mind_. Imagining Guinevere, the way she looked and smelled and smiled and would never begrudge him comfort in her absence, as Merlin offered…as he offered _that_. And then hurtling himself forward and grabbing to stop the words, yelling, and Merlin holding his palm up and out in that familiar gesture to ward off an attacker with magic. To protect himself from Arthur. _You are never to imply that you can take Guinevere’s place!_

“Why are you here?”

“Because you wouldn’t let me go back to my own room.”

Arthur turned away to scowl at the burning logs. _You are not the only one who misses her._ “You’re not actually that dense.” When Merlin merely stood there, apparently not even moving, Arthur snapped, “You’re a sorcerer.”

Dry as sand, Merlin shot back, “Well spotted.” _I’m not good enough to be a whore, much less your servant._

Arthur knuckled the furrow between his eyebrows as if he could grind out the fresh recollection of that drunken night. “In _Camelot_!” He hissed. The remains of the fire smoldered and spit back, and he wondered at his own penchant for tearing apart the things he valued most. “Why did you come _here_? Why stay? It was stupid, even for you. So why? Why serve me, of all people?” When Merlin drew an audible breath behind him, Arthur snapped, “So help me god, if you start spouting off about destiny again, I will throw you out of the city myself.” He wouldn’t, of course. It would kill him to be rid of Merlin too.

Eventually, Merlin seemed to realize that Arthur wasn’t going to say anything until he received an answer. As if unsure of his own motives, Merlin offered, “You’re a good man.”

Arthur snorted, an entirely humorless sound. “I am Uther Pendragon’s son.”

There was a bit of scratching from Merlin’s direction, and then the plop of a boot hitting the floor. “You are not like your father. You’re a great king, Arthur.” He said it with such conviction that Arthur’s stomach actually burned from the burst of shame like an ulcer.

Arthur’s eyes slid shut of their own volition, and he shook his head. “When are you going to see me for what I am? I’m not your Once and Future King, Merlin.”

“You’re a good man,” Merlin insisted. “I know it.”

“Stop pretending.” It was barely a whisper, but it rang clear and unmistakable in the room. “You know better. You _know_ me.” He sighed as if shrugging off a weight he hadn’t known he was carrying. “You have got to stop turning a blind eye to every unforgivable thing that I do.”

“I’m not turning a blind eye to anything,” Merlin choked. Arthur wondered what his face looked like – if it was sorrow, or disillusionment, or just outrage at anyone disparaging his king, even Arthur himself. That northern peasant’s accent came out thick as treacle in a way that Arthur had thought faded years ago.

“How are you not?!” Arthur rounded on him, and felt a sick kind of satisfaction at the way Merlin backed up a step, angling himself as if to shield the vulnerable underbelly from a predator. He wasn’t entirely witless, then. “You let me ridicule you, insult you, debase you – ”

“I wouldn’t call it debasing – ”

“Shut up, Merlin. Look at me!”

Merlin’s gaze flickered back to Arthur immediately, and it was even more irritating that he simply obeyed.

“You let me hit you, throw things at you…” Arthur could see himself flinging a goblet or a pitcher, or something else hard and heavy, aiming for the head and not always missing. And Merlin just standing there, maybe ducking but often caught off guard, making some smartass comment as if it were fun. And Arthur laughing it all off and calling it _horseplay_.

“You don’t throw things nearly so often anymore.”

Arthur ticked and stared at him, incredulous. That was his justification? “Are you mental?”

And Merlin grinned – he _grinned_ , all cheek and nervous hints of laughter in his voice. “Probably.”

“It’s not funny!” Arthur didn’t realize he’d crossed the room until Merlin reared back with his arm raised to shield his face, startled by Arthur’s fury. “And what about his then?” Arthur jabbed trembling fingers at his own neck, watching Merlin mirror the motion, albeit more gently and with a look of confusion. “Are you going to excuse this too?”

Merlin blinked and mumbled a few non-syllables before replying, “You were drunk.”

Arthur just looked at him, because he couldn’t understand this. Merlin wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t without pride. But looking at him now, listening to it, Arthur wouldn’t have been able to tell. “How far would you have let me go?”

Merlin shook his head. “Arthur, what – ”

All but in Merlin’s face now, Arthur demanded, “Just now – what would you have let me do?” He waved a hand at the bed, unable to name what he’d done on there because he didn’t know what it was, really.

Merlin’s face pulled down at the edges, as if he couldn’t comprehend the question or why Arthur needed to ask it. “Whatever you wanted.” As if that were obvious. As if it were a foregone conclusion – gods, he didn’t even stop to think about it before he answered.

Arthur couldn’t fathom it – how Merlin could simply stand there and say that, and mean it so completely. It was awful, the raw faith that he had in Arthur – it was the most true thing that Arthur had ever seen. Honest and open and fragile like a moth, and Arthur could crush it if he wanted to. Merlin would let him. Why would anyone give Arthur that kind of power? _I don’t want you whoring yourself out._ Not even to the king. But isn’t that essentially exactly what he did, every day, just serving Arthur?

Merlin shook his head and Arthur saw a mirror there of his own confusion over the other’s words. But Merlin seemed to see something in Arthur’s behavior that made sense because the tight consternation smoothed into a sympathetic haze. “Why have I been sleeping in your bed?”

“Because…” Arthur struggled for words that he would be able to say, but came up empty. He raised his hand and traced Merlin’s hairline, disturbed by the stillness on Merlin’s face – the placidity of his posture where he stood, as if Arthur weren’t acting like a lunatic. As if he already knew what they were both going on about. Arthur’s fingertips probed at the thin line of scar tissue running down from brow to temple and Merlin’s breath puffed soft against Arthur’s wrist – evidence of life. He thought about sitting huddled against the dark, listening for the screech and swoop of dragon wings and watching Merlin’s breath, barely there, clouding the metal of a vambrace over and over and over…

The pounding startled them both apart. Arthur flung an irritated glance at the door and then took a deep and calming breath in an effort to look as if he weren't hiding anything. When he looked up, Merlin wore an expression that marked him guilty as hell. It took a moment for Arthur to comprehend why, and then he recalled the state of his chambers. It still smelled like charred wood and smoke, and magic, and while the dust, shards and crumbled mess of things scattered on the floor could have been explained away easily enough, the small tree growing out of where the fruit bowl used to sit on his dining table could not. He blinked at it a few times for good measure because honestly… How had he missed that?

“We need to do something about the tree.”

Arthur cocked his head and moved only as much as he had to in order to peer sidelong at Merlin. “There are only like half a dozen apples on it.”

Merlin’s eyes flickered around and then landed, narrowed, on Arthur’s shoulder. Or somewhere near it. “What difference does that make? It’s still a tree growing in your table.”

“There were only a half dozen in the fruit bowl,” Arthur explained. Though he probably could have done a better job of making his point, if Merlin’s wide eyes and half-twisted mouth were any indication of how stupid he sounded. He huffed at Merlin. “You grew me an entire tree just to hang the same number of apples off of it that I had before.”

Merlin started to shake his head, probably in disbelief, and then merely blinked at him. Also in disbelief. Probably. “Do you want me to grow you more apples?”

“Yes! You grew a bloody tree for nothing! I have the exact same number of apples, but now there’s a tree in my table – where am I supposed to eat them? At least make the tree worth something!”

Merlin flubbed something that didn’t quite resolve into words, and then he stared at the tree again in disbelief. One of the leaves twisted a bit in a draft that blew from the corners of the room and fell off. They both looked at it, and then Merlin burst out with, “I made you a bloody _tree_!”

Arthur scoffed, but he could feel the goofy lines coming out in his face, totally inappropriate to the situation. “A _shoddy_ tree,” he allowed, fighting to keep a straight face.

Merlin’s eyes waxed wider, and then he reconsidered the tree, glared at Arthur, and raised a palm to face it. “I’ll give you a shoddy tree.”

“ _Don’t_ – ” Arthur grabbed his arm, alarmed. “ – make it better. It’ll just be harder to explain.”

A mutinous gleam – somewhat amber in color – came into Merlin’s eyes and another dozen apples budded, swelled, and fell in a rush of thunks from the branches.

“ _Mer_ lin!”

Several apples rolled innocently off of the table and Merlin smiled at Arthur. “I strive to give my king everything he desires.”

Arthur opened his mouth to retort, but he only managed to click something in the back of his throat before the knocking came again, harder this time and accompanied by a muffled, _Sire?_ Arthur swore, tore at the bedding twisted in a wreck all over the bed, and threw a sheet over the tree.

“Oh, that’s much better.”

“Shut up, Merlin.”

“Now it just looks like a tree with a sheet over it. How ever will they figure it out?”

“Shut _up_. You’re a damn menace.” Arthur fiddled with the sheet, threw up his hands, and then looked at Merlin. “Well?” He threw his hands about, and when all Merlin did was shrug, clueless, Arthur hissed, “Answer the bloody door!”

“Oh!” Merlin looked at the door, the tree again, and Arthur once more for good measure, then shook his head on his way to the door as if to wonder how this became his life. Arthur followed him for no good reason and tried to block the view into the room without being obvious or suspicious about it, while Merlin looked a mixture of smug and irritated.

Another flurry of knocks sounded out as Merlin lifted the latch and opened the door just far enough to see who was there. A chambermaid’s face appeared at the jamb, her features edging on a panic, and she let out a huge breath of relief upon seeing them. “Sire! I’m so sorry. It’s just, no one has collected any meals for you today, and when no one answered – ”

“It’s quite all right,” Arthur told her. “And we’re fine. I mean, _I’m_ fine. Merlin is just…also fine.” He heard another thump of an apple falling and leaned his elbow up on the edge of door with a nonchalant smile. Merlin raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you fine?”

The maid stuttered and took a step back. “Um. Yes, sire. Thank you, sire. Shall I have someone bring up your dinner?” She eyed first his state of near undress, and then Merlin’s.

Oh, that was going to start rumors. Arthur widened his smile, and the girl quailed a bit. “That would be lovely, thank you.”

The girl nodded, and in Arthur’s periphery, Merlin rolled his eyes. “Also,” the girl stammered, “the physician is looking for Merlin. There’s a, um…there was an incident.”

Arthur straightened abruptly. “What happened.”

“Oh, nothing! That is, it was only one person. She, um…forgive me, sire. She’ll see only Merlin. Sire.”

Arthur balked, but before he could made some crass remark or insult Merlin’s prowess with women and then tease him about it, Merlin said, “Is it Elise again?”

The maid bit her lip and nodded. “I’m sorry, it’s just she won’t let the other physician treat her, and her mum is with her saying the same thing.”

“Who’s Elise?”

Merlin barely glanced at Arthur as he hurried to retrieve his boots and clothes. “The miller’s daughter, sire. It’s a delicate matter.”

“What would you know about women’s delicate matters?” And then Arthur cleared his throat and stepped back from the door as he was treated to two rather frosty glares. “Right, well. You’d better get on then.”

It seemed that Merlin only just refrained from calling him an arse as he sniffed and left the room. The maid curtsied stiffly and mumbled something about sending George up with a tray, and then also left without waiting to be dismissed. Arthur pursed his lips and screwed his mouth up to one side as he closed the door. Another apple clunked to the tabletop and rolled away, and Arthur sighed at the ceiling because really. There was a tree growing out of his table, his room smelled like a smokehouse, and somehow, he was the one feeling chagrined. It was probably justified.

* * *

_“I still can’t believe how lucky I was.”_

_Arthur contemplated Guinevere at the other end of the table. He could understand that she might be upset over the attempted assassination, and the subsequent quick and bloody routing when the Sarum’s men tried to avenge their fallen leader, but she wasn’t acting the way Arthur expected. She was quiet, contemplative in a way that was almost sullen, and she hadn’t gone to even_ see _the wounded, much less help tend to them the way she normally would. Even now when he spoke, she looked away, and it wasn’t a lingering fear at what could have happened that day which marred her features. No, it echoed the expression she’d worn at the round table when Arthur looked up from the bolt in the Sarum’s back: impatience or frustration, maybe. There wasn’t any concern for Arthur’s safety, or anyone else’s. She simply looked as if something carefully planned had gone wrong, which of course it had, but Arthur wasn’t sure anymore that they were both lamenting the disruption of the same something. And it confused him, and that made him short._

_“I owe that boy my life, and I don’t know who he was, or where he’s from.” Guinevere watched him attentively as he spoke but Arthur wasn’t sure that he felt comfortable with the manner in which she did it. He glanced past his shoulder instead, to where Merlin seemed to be taking an awfully long time to prepare their dinner plates. “We need to make sure we give him a decent burial.”_

_Merlin’s head came up from the food tray and he half turned toward Arthur. His voice sounded stuffy when he replied, “I’ll do that.”_

_It was not at all like Merlin; there was a cold, pinched formality to it that Arthur was not accustomed to. That, and there had been an unusual number of_ my lord _’s and_ sire’s _peppered into pretty much everything that Merlin had said for weeks now. As a rule, he wasn’t deferential to Arthur, and the Good Servant act grated. Merlin hadn’t even smiled in ages, and his face was starting to resemble the backend of a cat. Arthur resolved to tell him that if he didn’t snap out of this soon._

 _Merlin turned with plates in his hands. “If you’ll allow me the time?” The look he gave Arthur at that was brief, but rife with all kinds of things that normal servants were, and Merlin was not. It was distant, as if Arthur were_ just _the king. As if they were strangers._

 _This was really starting to get on Arthur’s nerves. He hadn’t done anything allegedly prattish that he was aware of, so why was Merlin acting like this? Offended or something, or just…not Merlin. Arthur should be getting cheek right now about how Merlin leaves him for two days, and already someone tries to kill him. And the whole_ girl _thing just made no sense, really. Since when did Merlin have any interest whatsoever in girls? And normal men got happy and stupid with a new girl in their lives; Merlin should be acting even more of an idiot and grinning like a gormless moron, not…whatever the hell this was. He wasn’t even a little bit relaxed. And where did the boy come from, if Merlin spent two days with a girl? Or was it not actually a girl he’d gone to visit? That thought was…interesting. And odd. Just…Arthur didn’t like the idea one bit._

_Arthur stared blandly at the sleeve of Merlin’s jacket as a plate clattered onto the table before him. Mostly just to get a rise out of him, Arthur quipped, “Oh. So…you can go and visit that girl again.” He didn’t quite look at Merlin when he said it, but he didn’t have to. What he did see, too clearly, was Guinevere raise her eyes, falsely demure where she sat brooding. It was the look of someone about to be caught out, and that was just… Were the two of them conspiring over this supposed love affair?_

_Well, yes – because Guinevere had kept it a secret from even Arthur, but really. Arthur was starting to wonder if there was any girl at all, from the way the two of the were shooting each other calculating glances whenever the other wasn’t looking. It was disconcerting._

_Merlin staggered a bit on his way down the length of the table to place Guinevere’s plate. “What?”_

_“Girl,” Arthur drawled, and smirked a bit to try to convey to both of them that he didn’t appreciate the subterfuge._

_Merlin scoffed, as if this were the one thing that took the cake, as it were, on an already shitty day. “Don’t have one.”_

_Arthur narrowed his eyes, but kept them on his plate, because he could tell when Merlin was lying, and while there was concealment in there somewhere, it wasn’t a lie. Oh, gods, what if that boy really was the ‘girl’ he’d gone to see. “That’s not what Guinevere tells me.”_

_When Arthur looked up, Guinevere was giving him that wide eyed warning look that meant he should shut up before he ruined some bit of delicate diplomacy, but behind him, he could veritably_ hear _Merlin go still. There was no guilt in the line of his back though when Arthur veered his head in that direction to peer over his shoulder again. He’d straightened, and seemed to be in the middle of realizing something. The look to which he treated Guinevere when he turned around, water pitcher at the ready…Arthur had seen that expression on other men’s faces when forced to maintain a civil front – a façade of fake congeniality broken by sidelong, narrow-eyed glances because for whatever reason – propriety or politics or subterfuge – they couldn’t say what they really meant. People didn’t regard their friends, or their monarchs, like that._

 _Guinevere twisted her head in an attempt to appear coy, maybe, and Merlin just_ looked _at her as if to tell her that he knew exactly what she was on about. There may have been a vague sort of threat there, or just impotent dislike. Arthur thought – no, he_ knew _– that the two of them were friends. Weren’t they? Merlin loved Guinevere, sort of. In the way of siblings, certainly. He had been the only one standing up for her when Arthur banished her – the only one trying to talk Arthur around, and he’d always seemed so enamored of the idea of Arthur’s true love for a serving girl, so what on earth –_

_“So,” Arthur butted in. “Why don’t you tell us all about her?” He tapped his goblet to regain Merlin’s attention, and also to break the staring contest going on between the room’s other inhabitants before one of them did or said something unwise._

_Arthur could detect something ominous in the way Merlin slid his eyes and posture both away from Guinevere and down toward the pitcher as he poured out Arthur’s water. But he kept his body angled toward Guinevere, as if not to show her his back. Arthur stared at the side of his head for a moment, irrationally irritated when it seemed Merlin might not look back at him, but then his eyes did strafe Arthur on their way back down the table toward Guinevere. There was a frightening clarity there, and Arthur wished he knew what it meant._

_Merlin strode alongside the table to pour Guinevere’s water next. It was a languid thing, the way he moved when he watched her, but in the manner that snakes were languid while coiled waiting in the grass. It was cocky, which Arthur had never seen in Merlin before. Merlin knew something and he wanted Guinevere to see that, and Arthur would bet his crown that this – whatever this was – had nothing to do with any girl. The look on his face… Arthur knew that Merlin was no longer a gangly country boy. He wasn’t a child or an idiot, but this? That was the look knights wore picking up a thrown gauntlet, droll as if saying,_ All right, you want to do this? We’ll do this then _._

 _Merlin replied, “Right,” to Arthur, but everything behind it was meant for Guinevere. Contempt._ I see you. _That was the sorcerer, Arthur realized, watching Merlin smirk at Guinevere. It wasn’t kind – it wasn’t even any kind of challenge, it was just there, a naked fact: she only still lived right now by his mercy. That was the man who kept killing the bad people Arthur couldn’t, and damn the consequences – the man who stood behind Arthur wearing a mask of his own skin, lending lie to the idea that Merlin – goofy, bumbling, faithful country boy Merlin with the ridiculous ears and a grin that lit up rooms with his cheek – had any more innocence left in him than Arthur did. That was the Merlin he didn’t really know._

_Guinevere bobbed her eyebrows at Merlin as if she couldn’t see the way he all but stalked her where she sat. She was playful, as if this were just another day and she had no idea what the issue was – that she…that she had lied. To the king. To Gaius. Why – why would she do that? And Merlin just poured and smiled in a way that jarred Arthur for its lack of teeth and open malice, because that was what Merlin’s expression all but screamed, and how could Guinevere not see it?_

_Arthur blinked, suspicious and on guard now, his limbs looser for it. He raised his goblet, but before he sipped, he added, “And why you’re walking with a limp.” And it only then occurred to him to truly_ _wonder at the logistics of two days of absence followed by a sudden appearance with a strange boy in tow to stop Arthur’s assassination literally at the last possible moment. What on earth had Merlin been doing? Because he must have known – he showed back up to the citadel injured, harried, leaning on a stick for gods’ sake, as if he couldn’t spare time for anything else, and what – ran straight up to the balcony where a sharp shooter just happened to be waiting with a loaded crossbow?_

_Guinevere swallowed and peered up at Merlin from under lowered lashes, and Merlin… He didn’t smile, exactly, but there was definitely a dark sort of humor to his expression. Arthur wanted to defend his wife. He did, but something about all of this – it gave him pause. It occurred to him that he must have known something himself – he must have sensed the wrongness before now – because throughout this entire exchange, he made no move to censor Merlin for his behavior. For the threat and insolence in his posture – no. It didn’t offend Arthur’s sensibility to see his manservant treating the queen in such a manner. Rather, it vindicated something in him – in Arthur._

_Arthur looked back to his wife. He_ looked _to his wife, while she regarded Merlin. And when she turned back to Arthur, he finally noticed that Guinevere didn’t seem to be the only thing looking back. There was something dead in there, something hollow. And then she smiled at him, sweet._

_* * *_

_Arthur paced the halls of his castle quietly. He wasn’t sneaking around, per se, but he also didn’t need anyone noticing him; it might get back to Guinevere at some point. The thought felt traitorous, but Arthur couldn’t stop his thoughts whirring ever since the strained and awkward dinner. Merlin had not explained himself, or his limp, though Arthur had at least noticed that his leg was bandaged and that some spots of dark rust had seeped through the white linen. He hadn’t come back from clearing the plates either, and Arthur wanted to know why as much as he wanted to simply blind himself and forget the terrible notions creeping through his mind._

_It was Tyr Seward, of all the things, that came to Arthur first. Tyr was loyal and innocent, possessed of the kind of simple-mindedness that Merlin only faked well. He was utterly devoted to his mother and proud of his work for Arthur. He was…refreshing. And Guinevere had advocated his execution on the basis of a dearth of real evidence that even Uther might have paused at. That was not Guinevere. It may have been the advice of any other queen, but Arthur had not married_ any other queen _, and Guinevere was kind. He had been surprised to hear her push for the boy’s death, but he had shrugged it off at the time. Rationalized it. Arthur’s life was in danger, Arthur was the king, so the danger must be removed. He had grown up with judgements like that coming from the mouth of his father. It had been odd, but familiar enough to overlook._

 _What was not familiar, and what he should not have brushed off, was learning that the first (and only) person to accuse Merlin of poisoning Arthur those many weeks ago was Guinevere. Of course, Merlin was a sorcerer and an accomplished liar (apparently), and a dozen other things that might have made him suspect…to any other person. But Guinevere knew Merlin – loved and trusted him, and looked on him fondly like a little brother, younger as he was. She well knew the ferocity of Merlin’s loyalty – she had said as much, that it wasn’t normal and that Arthur needed to take heed of it before Merlin got himself killed protecting one of them, because Merlin would never say no to Arthur when it mattered, and he would never save his own life if even the slightest bit of Arthur’s were at risk. And yet she accused_ him _? Why?_

 _Or was it exactly_ because _Merlin would give his own life to save Arthur – kill whoever he needed to, incur Arthur’s wrath or his hatred, stand up to anyone in any way he could, noble or not – queen or not – if it meant he could save Arthur?_

_It was a simple equation, really – Arthur should have worked it through long before now. Only two people could have accessed Arthur’s food between the taste testing and Arthur consuming it: Merlin, who still, despite Arthur’s railing, insisted on doing the tasting himself; and Guinevere, who ate the meal with him and was not, herself, exposed to the poison. Merlin served them both from the same platter. If there were poison in it then, they should have both consumed it. That meant that the poison was administered after Merlin served it, and Guinevere was the only one there to do it._

_Of course, Merlin could have put something on Arthur’s food after plating it, while his back was turned and his body blocked Arthur’s line of sight, but Arthur couldn’t imagine that. What did it say about Arthur that he held his servant’s fealty above that of his own beloved wife? And yet he did; he held Merlin’s loyalty up like a beacon with the same fervor he saw in Merlin’s face when he called Arthur prat and clotpole and the Once and Future King. It was sacrosanct._

_Arthur rounded the corner into the hall leading to the physician’s quarters, the torches here spaced farther apart and burning more smoke than flame. He took care not to trip and then slowed as he approached the infirmary, because he could hear soft voices, and following fast on that, the unmistakable sound of someone retching. It would be just his luck if Gaius had a patient in there – some late-night drunken lord or knight emptying himself of enough mead to poison an ox. Gwaine, maybe._

_Arthur snorted at the absurdity of that; Gwaine would have outdrank the ox, and he’d never waste ale by letting his body expel it._

_As he drew up to the door, Arthur heard Gaius shuffling around, and then, “Here, drink this.”_

_“I can’t.”_

_Arthur went still, because that was Merlin’s voice, tight with discomfort, and he sounded miserable._

_“It’s just ground ginger in water. It’ll settle your stomach.”_

_Arthur heard Merlin gasp hard and then whimper before another round of retching echoed out harsh in the darkness of the corridor. It sounded dry and painful._

_“It won’t stay down,” Merlin croaked. Gaius must have tried pushing the ginger on him again._

_“Just sip it,” Gaius insisted. “Wet your throat with it, nothing more.”_

_Arthur listened to Merlin heave a few rapid, deep breaths, and then he let out a pitiful groan. “I have to tend Arthur for the night.”_

_“You shouldn’t be working at all,” Gaius insisted. “You can barely stand. And I need to look at that wound.”_

_“I’m fine.”_

_Arthur wanted to be angry. He wanted to storm in and demand that Merlin explain himself, and get treatment, and confess to…something. Render the world whole again and deliver his wife, and Arthur’s trust in her, back to him. And he_ was _angry, but it didn’t have a focus; it just roiled inside of him, impotent and resilient like plague, and more than anything else in that moment, he wanted Merlin not to be ill or hurt so that he could direct that anger at Merlin and not feel like an absolute cad for doing it._

_Gaius sighed and murmured, “Merlin…” as if he knew better than to argue._

_“What would I tell Arthur?” Merlin demanded, his voice thread and raw from throwing up. “He’ll notice I’m not there. I’m surprised he isn’t down here already yelling and throwing things at my head.” It was bitter, that, and Arthur wondered when dealing with him had become such a chore. He had thought that Merlin enjoyed it, complaints and sass aside. Why else would he have stayed so long? They had a fractious friendship, granted, but there was something real in there too._

_After a hesitation, Gaius ventured, “The truth?”_

_Arthur knocked quickly, because he wasn’t sure that he wanted to hear Merlin’s answer. Yes, here are all the things he kept hidden, which Arthur could have previously only guessed at best – layers upon layers like deposits of sediment in a lake bed – or no…because the only man who had never harbored ambition or ulterior motives toward Arthur didn’t trust him at all._

_The infirmary grew quiet like a forest when a wolf prowled past, and then Gaius rustled around to answer the door. He looked surprised first, and then wary before his eyes went hard as ice chips. “Sire? Merlin is not well. I can send someone else to tend you this evening.”_

_Arthur nodded but pushed the door open, and Gaius aside with it. “Leave us. I need to speak to Merlin alone.” He had no doubt that Gaius knew everything that Merlin did about what was going on here, but he didn’t trust Gaius to tell him the entire truth, or to let Merlin tell him, either willingly or through the betrayal of his own face. “Now, please.”_

_Gaius made an admirable attempt not to look like he was glaring at Arthur, but he did. Then he glanced back at Merlin, who had pulled himself onto a stool at the tiny dining table in a farce of normalcy. Nothing could quite cover the stench of fresh vomit, though._

_Arthur sucked in a slow breath and shut his eyes briefly before saying, “I can tend myself for the night, but I need to speak with him.”_

_Gaius’s face offered a few nonspecific twitches, failed to resolve into any expression at all, and then he bowed. The stiffness of it had little to do with age. “Please do not take long, sire; he needs to rest.”_

_Arthur nodded, eyeing Merlin where he sat unsteady, propped against the table in front of him. No one said anything else until Gaius fetched a long cloak and shuffled out, closing the door behind him._

_“Turning an old man out of his own home in the middle of the night,” Merlin mused. “Very kingly of you.”_

_Arthur faced him across the length of half the room. The words were all correct – classic Merlin insolence whenever Arthur did something that normal people found inconsiderate. Even the tone was right, but Merlin’s face didn’t match, and it set Arthur’s teeth on edge. “What happened to you?”_

_Merlin’s mouth creased, and when the smile failed to reach past his cheekbones, Arthur realized how unkind the look was. “With a girl. Like the queen said.”_

The queen, _not_ Gwen. _Proper address, of course – Merlin’s rank didn’t allow him to call Guinevere by name. Or Arthur. Not that it ever discouraged him._

_“We both know that’s a load of rubbish.”_

_“Right,” Merlin scoffed, but it was a harsh, mocking thing. “What girl would have me?”_

_“That’s not even the point.” But yes, Arthur had thought that too in a few unkind moments because Merlin would be a terrible husband. Or at least he would be as long as Arthur lived and needed him. Arthur grimaced and paced up to the table, brushed aside a half-eaten plate of what evidently passed for food here, and sat down opposite him. Merlin looked sweaty and off color like pond scum, his neckerchief clenched in one hand and the laces on his tunic open far enough that Arthur could just glimpse the edges of the odd burn scar that marred his chest – the one Merlin hadn’t had when he first entered Arthur’s service. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”_

_Merlin pressed his lips together until the inside of his mouth caught on a canine. “I don’t tell you a lot of things, sire. You usually tell me to shut up, anyway.”_

_Arthur bit the inside of his cheek and forced himself not to react with the anger that comment engendered, true or not. “Did Guinevere do this to you?”_

_It was subtle, but it was there – the flinch. “No, my lord.” And that was only a half truth._

_Or perhaps it was just nausea, because Merlin swallowed hard and pressed his neckerchief to his mouth for a moment as if holding something down._

_Arthur nodded at the bucket that one of them had draped with a cloth, as if that would hide the smell. “Don’t let me keep you.”_

_Merlin cleared his throat and shifted, but remained where he was. When he lowered the neckerchief though, there was a sticky black stain on it, and Merlin scrubbed for a moment at his lips to remove whatever else was there._

_Arthur furrowed his brow. “That’s not blood,” he said before he thought about it. It wasn’t any sort of bile he’d ever seen either, and it carried an oily sheen. He looked up, because it occurred to him that what he was seeing resembled the symptoms of poisoning._

_Merlin folded the neckerchief to hide the evidence and said nothing._

_“You’ve never held back with me before.” Arthur leaned his head to the side to try to catch Merlin’s reluctant gaze, and then he changed tacks at the mulish look on his servant’s face. “You were poisoned, weren’t you. And attacked? The wound on your leg – how did you get it?”_

_“I’m clumsy,” Merlin muttered._

_“Really?” Arthur didn’t doubt that, except that Merlin could be remarkably stealthy when he really tried, and he wasn’t prone to random injuries, for all that a lot of things seemed to break in his care. “Tell me the truth.”_

_“That is the truth,” Merlin snapped. “I fell into a ravine. You know how I am.”_

_“Yes, I do,” Arthur murmured. “Did the ravine poison you too?”_

_“Maybe I ate some bad eggs.”_

_“You can’t afford eggs,” he scoffed. “Unless they were mine, and you stole them off of my plate, in which case I’d have noticed. Merlin, you can tell me.”_

_That seemed the wrong thing to say; Merlin’s face twisted up in muted fury. “Really? I can tell you. Like I could tell you about Agravaine? That didn’t go so well for me.”_

_Arthur started to shake his head._

_“You threatened to exile me if I said anything against him! When have you_ ever _listened to anything I have to say?”_

 _“I listen to you all the time.” Arthur shook his head in disbelief, though more at himself for the need to defend his character against the aspersions cast by a servant, than at the words themselves. Merlin was giving things away though, whether he wanted to or not. Of all the examples he could have chosen for times when Arthur didn’t listen to him about someone’s motives, he chose Agravaine. A person Arthur loved._ Had _loved._

_“No,” Merlin shook his head and his expression turned inward in self-deprecation. “I am the last person you listen to because I’m just a servant, and a stupid one at that.”_

_Arthur shook his head and frowned into his hands clasped before him on the table. “Being a servant never stopped you speaking your mind.”_

_“Last time I told you there was a traitor in your court, you accused Gaius instead, and he nearly got killed. You left him to that because it was easier to stomach. Gaius was your father’s man, and a sorcerer once. It’s just good riddance. I may be slow, but I do learn.”_

_It took a moment for Arthur to blink through a haze of anger, and then of something that burned acidic and unpleasant in his gut. “I’ve learned too,” he offered._

_Merlin sucked in a breath and looked away as it blew back out._

_“You killed him,” Arthur said. “Didn’t you? My uncle? He followed us into the caves, you went back, and no one ever saw him again.”_

_Merlin inhaled again, his eyes sliding shut, but he gave away nothing more._

_“How many people have you killed for me?” Perverse question, that. But he had suspicions, and the one that niggled hardest at the back of his mind was that if Guinevere were a threat, Merlin would remain true to form and kill her. For Arthur. And hate himself after._

_“I’ve lost count,” Merlin sneered. He rubbed his neckerchief at his nose and looked away, breathing harder than he should for even a heated conversation. It was honestly the closest Arthur thought he’d ever been to hearing something straight from Merlin the sorcerer. There was no brag there, however – no aggrandizement. It was a response born of weariness and regret. Arthur wondered if the latter were simply because he’d killed, or because he’d done it for Arthur._

_Arthur wobbled where he sat and glanced around the room as if his thoughts might be floating there in disarray for him grab. “Did you know about Morgana too?”_

_Merlin blinked up at him, his eyes empty and his face mostly blank. His eyes gave him away, though; they always did. Too clear. Too blue. Shiny. It was answer enough. Arthur remembered walking into the throne room after defeating Cenred’s forces and the undead army._ I need to tell you something about Morgana. _And then Uther had announced her the hero of the day, and Merlin hadn’t even tried to talk to him about her again. Arthur was at least self-aware enough to know that if Merlin had tried, Arthur would have done worse than just not listen. But it begged the question: in the months between then, and her public betrayal, what had she done, or tried to do, to Merlin? Because there was no way she didn’t see him down in the crypts too, and he was pants at subterfuge. Morgana would have known him for a threat, magic or not._

_“My wife,” Arthur continued, and had to stop for the lump that threatened to steal his speech. “Guinevere,” he whispered. “Do you know something about her too?”_

_Merlin hitched a breath and dropped his gaze in a vain attempt to hide the moisture welling up along the lower rim of his eyelid. “Gaius shouldn’t be out this late. His joints bother him.”_

_“Then give me a straight answer, and he can come back.” Arthur tried to wait him out with silence, but Merlin’s face remained stubbornly set in a poorly constructed mask of ignorance. Finally, Arthur tried, “I know that I have reacted poorly in the past when you warned me of a danger I didn’t want to see, but I need to know. Tell me what really happened.”_

_A tense silence bled out between them, Merlin’s face half hidden in the shadows where he kept his head bowed over hands that restlessly worried at the scrap of neckerchief stained with not-blood. Finally, Merlin’s voice sounded out dull from near his hands, “I fell into a ravine.”_

_Arthur stared at him. “And this alleged girl you say you don’t have? Tell me about her.”_

_There was no way for Merlin to answer that without calling the queen a liar, because Arthur knew him. He knew that Merlin didn’t have a girl. And while he might believe that Merlin would disappear for a couple of days without telling Arthur (because he’d done it before), he did not, for a single moment, believe that Merlin would fail to tell Gaius. And Gaius had wanted a search party sent out. There was no girl._

_Arthur leaned closer over the table, but Merlin kept his eyes on his hands and his mouth shut. “You have a way of knowing things. Your…funny feelings. If you don’t want to tell me what happened, then tell me about one of those instead.”_

_Merlin lifted his head, but only enough to stare past Arthur rather than down. “Guinevere loves you. She would never betray you.”_

_“Well, it’s got to be one of you,” Arthur snapped. He could feel his temper rising up from beneath the surface, and he hated it, but he didn’t know what else to say. “Do you want to confess, then? Is that it? Tell me how it really was you who poisoned me, and you who conspired to assassinate me today? Convenient, how you were up there with the shooter, and the only other witness dead at your feet. Tell me that the reason you and Guinevere act like strangers all of a sudden is because she was right about you but doesn’t know how to convince me. Tell me, Merlin. You’ve been walking around here like a ghost for weeks – you don’t even complain anymore. That’s suspicious, don’t you think? Maybe you’re the one leaking secrets to our enemies. Maybe that’s where you’ve been for two bloody days.”_

_Merlin barely reacted, and perhaps that should have clued Arthur into the fact that Merlin expected so little of Arthur in regards to himself that he wasn’t even surprised to be accused in turn. To be the messenger Arthur shot. Merlin’s response came out dull and devoid of any actual agreement. “If you say so, my lord.”_

_“Dammit, Merlin!” Arthur slammed a fist against the table, and felt a sick gratification at how Merlin flinched because at least that was honest. He let out a weary breath and tried to remember the hollow feeling that Guinevere had left him with – words read from scripts of how Guinevere should have been. “Is she threatening you?” But that wouldn’t stop Merlin – he had very few weak points, actually, and himself was not one of them. “Is she threatening Gaius?”_

_“No, my lord.”_

_Arthur was on his feet before he thought about it, and Merlin scrambled to rise as well just a beat too late. He was hot to the touch, disturbingly so, with clammy skin and an unhealthy fever sheen, but Arthur didn’t take heed of that. “I am your_ king _! It is treason to lie to me!”_

_Merlin gasped a bit and Arthur found himself holding up more weight than he expected when Merlin sagged and then tried to angle away from him. At the last moment, Arthur rotated him and let him flop toward the floor, where he made a visible effort to keep from passing out and failed. Arthur rocked back, shocked and dissatisfied to find himself holding the limp body of his servant, but it allowed him a moment to truly take stock of him too. Merlin was thinner than he should have been – again – and through the open collar of his shirt, Arthur could see other bruises and marks. He considered for a moment that what he wanted to do might be some kind of violation, but Merlin belonged to him, and he had a right to see how others had mistreated him._

_When Arthur shifted Merlin and lifted his tunic, he saw an awful array of fresh marks, deep purple and mottled all along one side of Merlin’s body. There were a few cuts too, but only superficial. A brief search turned up the thin line of a scab hidden along Merlin’s hairline, surrounded by a lighter bruise that spread into his scalp. He may have actually fallen into a ravine, but to judge by the coloration of the bruises, it would have to have been a far fall. Arthur breathed through whatever softer, amorphous anger was now crowding out his earlier fury and worked Merlin’s hand open to extract the crumpled neckerchief. The substance that Merlin had been coughing up appeared black with an oily sheen in the low candlelight, as he’d thought, and like no bodily fluid or bile he’d ever seen. He twisted to set the cloth on the table behind him, and then contemplated the slackened lines of the face of the liar he trusted with his life. Merlin had every reason to betray him, and never had. How was that the reason Arthur couldn’t seem to doubt him now? How was that the thing that made him trust Merlin over even his own wife?_

_Arthur huffed to himself. He had no answers, no clarity, nothing except the certainty that Merlin knew something, and appeared to have almost died because of it. Another boy_ had _died. And Guinevere was lying to cover Merlin’s absence. Guinevere…his beloved queen…seemed to want Merlin dead. If this was her, and Arthur thought it was, at least in part, then she had tried twice now to get rid of both him and Merlin. In passing, it was interesting how she apparently needed to get Merlin out of the way in order to make a credible attempt on Arthur._

_A log popped behind him in the fireplace and Arthur swiveled to check that nothing had rolled out. It looked fine, if not very bright, so he looked at the door and raised his voice to call Gaius in the hopes that he was simply lurking out there, waiting. “We need help in here!”_

_It took a moment, but indeed, Gaius opened the door, and then he drew a sharp breath at the scene inside. “What happened?” He hurried over as much as he could and his joints creaked as he knelt. “Merlin?” He left Merlin where he was, flopped limp over Arthur’s lap with his head lolling back in the crook of Arthur’s elbow. After feeling for breath and pulse, the rest of his apprentice registered, and Gaius touched at the bruising still exposed along the entirety of one side of Merlin’s body. “Oh.”_

_Arthur glanced up from the contrast of Gaius’s pale, red-knuckled fingers against mottled purple. “You didn’t know?”_

_Gaius shook his head without thinking. “I wasn’t aware of the extent…” He palpated along Merlin’s ribs, and then back to press over his kidney. “This is not minor,” he breathed. “He wouldn’t let me look at it, with everyone else needing attention after the assassination attempt. I haven’t even tended his leg yet.”_

_“He said that he fell into a ravine.”_

_Again, Gaius shook his head, lips pursed. “If he slipped, there would be scrapes – marks on his hands and fingers, his arms – and the bruising would spread more evenly over his torso from rolling down the side and catching himself up at the bottom. This was just a straight fall and a hard landing. I doubt he was even conscious for it.” Gaius continued feeling around Merlin’s ribcage and the knobs of his spine, oblivious, apparently, to the implications of what he’d said. “I need him on the cot, sire. If you would be so kind?”_

_Arthur jolted himself from his thoughts and blinked to regain his bearings in the room. “Of course.” He resituated Merlin’s upper body and then lifted, taking the majority of the weight while Gaius picked up his feet. They settled him on his side on Gaius’s cot, facing away, and Gaius moved into the work area to start gathering things for a treatment. Arthur remained where he was, bent over Merlin’s body and staring at the blemished skin beside where his hand rested in the divot of Merlin’s waist. There was a mark there he had not seen before – a puckered mark like a star. It was old by several years at least, but he still recognized it from seeing it fresh on dead bodies. “This is a serket sting.”_

_Gaius paused in mixing something into a thick pace. He relaxed when he saw what Arthur was looking at. “It’s old, but yes.”_

_“I thought that their sting was fatal.” Arthur ran his thumb over the mark to better map its contours and commit its placement to memory, low and off-center near the coccyx. It just missed the spine._

_Merlin’s skin tightened as if plucked like a string under the scrape of Arthur’s fingernail, and he grunted as he shifted away. Arthur sucked in an abrupt breath and lifted his hand before Merlin could wake._

_“Generally, yes,” Gaius agreed, and it took a moment for Arthur to remember what he had asked. “He was very lucky to survive. I imagine the serket had recently stung something else just before him, and that its venom was therefor less potent.”_

_Arthur glanced aside without moving his head. Gaius was watching him carefully between adding things to his bowl and grinding it all together. It wasn’t clear whether or not that response were a deflection, but the sting was certainly a subject off limits, to judge by the closed quality of Gaius’s face. Voice droll by design, Arthur replied, “How fortunate.”_

_“Indeed, sire.” Gaius continued to eye him though. Well. At least they understood each other, then. “You should go to your rest.”_

_“Rest?” Arthur snorted and then sobered quickly. “With a viper in my bed,” he muttered._

_“Sire?”_

_Arthur looked up to find Gaius regarding him with concern. “Nothing.” He waved it off. “I’m just disturbed, still, by the events of today.” He could ask Guinevere to sleep in the queen’s chambers, which she did often enough anyway. Plead a late-evening meeting, or paperwork to divert suspicion. Arthur looked down again as Gaius began spreading a thick, pungent salve across the curve of Merlin’s ribcage, just where the bone curled around his flank. Merlin breathed erratically at the touch, and Arthur stepped back to avoid seeing too much of it. Guinevere even now waited for Arthur in their bed – the shell of a doll with the inside scooped out, formed into the shape of his wife and filled up with lies and malice, laughing at the gullible, smitten king. All he wanted was to not leave this room, even if the only Merlin here were the one who seemed harder than he should and saddened by his own disillusionment. “You’ll take care of him?”_

_Gaius raised his head, his features soft the way they used to be when Arthur was young. “For as long as I am able. Goodnight, sire.”_

_Arthur nodded and slipped past him. He had almost reached the door when he heard Gaius say, “He would die for you.”_

_It was quiet, as if they were not a half dozen yards away from each other speaking through the expanse of a handful of candles in a drafty tower. A throwaway comment that he might not have heard at all. Arthur twisted his torso and looked back at the stoop of an old man hiding his face in the shadows. He wondered when Gaius had grown so old – when the years had bent his back and compressed him into this weary figure. They stared at each other and Arthur saw fear, and sadness, as if Gaius had already mourned the loss of a boy he loved to soften the blow when he inevitably had to endure his death._

_“Yes,” Arthur replied, his tone the same. Neither of them needed to say anything more._

_* * *_

Arthur sighed and stretched to relieve the kink in his back. He heard and felt a few crackles between his shoulder blades and swallowed a groan of relief, holding his arms up and rolling his shoulders back to bask in the sweet strain and ache of overtired bones and muscles. He could feel his age creeping up on him but it felt comfortable, like an acknowledgement that he’d gotten this far. Above him, the ceiling beams bore marks from the flames of the candles blazing like torches the night before, but George had scrubbed the scorches from the stone at least. One could hardly tell that a fire had broken out just a few hours ago.

George was still in Arthur’s chambers, sweeping out corners of the room and flattening himself to get under various pieces of furniture. His dedication to cleanliness was disturbing. When he appeared earlier with the supper that the maid had promised, he hardly reacted to the mess. Or to the tree draped entirely obviously in a sheet on his table. Arthur took his meal on his desk, allowed George to assist him with washing and dressing, and then just watched the man flutter about, picking things up.

“May I get you anything else, sire?”

Arthur blinked and shifted his eyes from the untouched tree to George. “No. You may go.”

George inclined his head, and then hesitated, which was out of character for him, considering he’d been dismissed. “I apologize for the smell of the room, sire. I have aired everything and changed the linens, but the scent of magic has not yet dissipated.”

Arthur tried not to let the panic seep into his features, king or no. He could feel his cheeks go chill, though, and figured he had probably paled in spite of himself. “You will say a word of this to no one. Do I make myself clear?”

George merely nodded and said, “Of course not, sire.” As if in a realm where magic was a capital offense, it still never crossed his mind to speak of this. Even Arthur being king did not excuse that. Did it? “I shall come back to tend the fire shortly and collect the plates, and I have a solution which may assist in concealing the charred marks in the ceiling beams.” He bowed, perfectly proper and unaffected, and then just…left. He walked right past a tree growing out of a table, roots poking out from beneath the sheet to curl around the edges of the wood, and left.

Arthur shook his head in disbelief, and then it occurred to him to wonder how a servant, ostensibly sheltered from most of what happened outside the small space of the royal household, came to recognize the specific scent of magic so well that when he encountered and spoke of it, it was with easy familiarity. It had taken years for Arthur to figure out what that scent was, however often he had been around it courtesy of Merlin having no self-preservation skills whatsoever. How did George just know what it was without blinking?

After finishing his food, Arthur belted on his sword and shrugged into his long sleeveless riding coat for warmth, the leather supple from use and the oils Merlin periodically used to clean it. Arthur fingered the edge near his collar and pictured Merlin bent close to the seam, the coat spread out flat over the table as he rubbed the oil in with a cloth, so completely focused on the task that the rest of the world may not even exist. The whole room smelled of cedar whenever he did that, and Merlin always seemed calm afterwards, as if the act were some kind of meditation for him.

Arthur found Sir Geoffrey scribbling away in the library, no matter the late hour. As usual, Geoffrey held a hand up to silence his visitor until after he had finished whatever he was writing, and Arthur smiled because some things never did change. He waited patiently until Geoffrey looked up and said, “Oh! Sire, my apologies.”

“No harm,” Arthur told him. “Shouldn’t you be at dinner or abed by now?”

Geoffrey glanced up at the darkened windows far away at the end of a row of bookshelves. “Ah. Yes, I imagine I should.”

Arthur snuffed at that, amused. “Actually, I’m glad I found you still here. I meant to speak with you earlier. You and Gaius were close. I imagine his passing has been hard on you.”

“Hm.” Geoffrey smile a bit vacantly, his eyes focused on something not in the room with them. “We were neither of us young men anymore.” The expression faded and he looked down. “I wonder if Alice knows.”

Arthur raised a brow but remained silent on that, even though he suspected that Geoffrey referred to the sorceress who had tried to kill Uther. Perhaps whatever creature she had raved about had set her free. Or perhaps that was Gaius; he had clearly loved her. And Merlin’s accusation against her had been reluctant enough that he hadn’t even returned to his room that night; Arthur had heard him rustling about in the servant’s chamber well past the last bell.

Geoffrey hummed to himself again and then looked at Arthur, inclining his head in respect as he did. “I will miss him,” he admitted.

“Of course. If you need anything…” Arthur held a hand out, palm up. “You have only to ask.”

“That is very kind of you, sire, but I shall be fine.” Geoffrey neatened a few stray pieces of parchment and then said, “As grateful as I am for your concern, I am certain that it is not the only reason you came down here.”

Arthur gave him a sheepish smile and pulled a chair over to sit. “You didn’t have much to say at the last council.”

They both knew that Arthur referred to the discussion of Gaius’s replacement, but Geoffrey did not oblige him by taking the expected conversation. “I find that I often have little to say at council.”

Very well, then; they were going to have _this_ conversation. It was likely long overdue by now, given Arthur’s reading proclivities of late. “That hardly seems credible. You are, after all, a very learned man. And yet, you keep your own thoughts so well that no one even thinks to consult you anymore. Some even insist you’ve gone soft in the head, but I imagine they’re simply seeing what you want them to.”

“Allow me to rephrase then, sire.” Either Geoffrey or the chair creaked a bit as he shifted to alleviate strain on weary joints. “I find that I often have little to say that would be welcome at council.”

Arthur nodded. “I can understand that. And I must thank you for indulging my research proclivities these past months.”

“I hope that your highness has found it illuminating.”

“I have.” Arthur nipped at his bottom lip and gave up on trying to look as if he were not paying his whole attention to the conversation at hand. Geoffrey’s daft-old-man persona had certainly dropped well away. Arthur remembered _this_ man from his youth, chasing him out of the library with a stick when he knocked a shelf askew, and no matter who was the prince. Arthur folded his hands on the desktop and regarded them with a frown. “You are now likely one of the last still living who recalls a time when magic was not simply tolerated, but welcome.” He glanced at the candles fluttering weakly on the table beside them, and found himself thinking of Merlin, of the vulnerability in the curl of his spine facing Arthur while he slept. “Why did you support the purge?”

Geoffrey took a deep breath. There was a lifetime contained within it. “I have very little still to lose in life,” he said, voice firm, and yet there was a softness there, an ache. “That includes my life.”

Arthur looked up, his brow drawing in at the center. “I’m not asking for your life. I only want the truth, Sir Geoffrey.”

“Not so long past, those two things were one and the same.” Several heartbeats passed while Geoffrey scrutinized his king, his gaze weighted. He took a deep breath, a preparation for battle from atop the rubble of a collapsed battlement wall. “I did not support the purge, sire.”

“But you supported my father through it.”

“I supported Camelot,” Geoffrey corrected. “My oath upon receiving my knighthood was not to obey or indulge Uther Pendragon. It was to protect and defend Camelot. I was already past my prime as a knight when the madness started. I could not fight. So I did what I was able.”

Arthur followed the direction of Geoffrey’s gaze out into the stacks of books and shelves bent under the weight of parchment. “You saved the writings,” Arthur realized. “Magical texts. The material you’ve been bringing me – is that where it came from?”

“Some of them,” Geoffrey confirmed. “Others were not deemed illicit, but their access was heavily restricted.”

Arthur shook his head. “Why risk your life for the sake of books?”

“Because certain knowledge, once lost, can never be regained.” Geoffrey shifted again where he sat. Arthur may have mistaken it for nerves if not for the soft hiss of discomfort that Geoffrey could not quite hide. He was, after all, quite getting on in years. “I could not leave Camelot defenseless against magic, sire; I took an oath, and fear of the king could not justify breaking it. The writings had to be saved, lest we lose the knowledge and ability to defend ourselves from attack by magic. We allowed the destruction of those magical texts which held no redeeming value – instruction on necromancy and dark deeds, blood magic and the like. Even those, I regret the loss of, because we may no longer have the knowledge to counter such things if we do not know the mechanism of it. They were sacrificed, however, to avoid suspicion that too few were burned. It was sick magic, in any case. I can only pray that it stays forgotten.”

Arthur nodded. “We?”

Geoffrey hesitated, but then replied, “Gaius and I collaborated to save what we could – what we must to ensure our survival.”

Of course, Arthur knew that Gaius had been somewhat shifty at times, but perhaps there was good cause he had yet to become aware of. If he had defied Uther to save critical texts, what else had he used his position and favor with the crown to do? “But what good is this knowledge if there are no sorcerers left to use it?”

“Someone _has_ been using it.”

“Oh?” Arthur was seriously going to have to talk to Merlin about self-preservation if it turned out that even Geoffrey knew what he was. “And who might that be?”

“I am afraid I could not say, sire.”

“Is that right.” Arthur directed a flat stare at him.

Geoffrey looked down for a moment, and then met Arthur’s gaze again. “I have tried to discover who it might be. He or she would have to be very powerful, and while I am certain that there is more small magic hiding all around us than you would like, I have not seen anything that resembles the power necessary for what I am convinced has been happening in Camelot.”

This seemed like the truth, so Arthur relaxed. “I see. If you have found no one, then what makes you so certain that there is anyone to find at all?”

“We are still alive.” Geoffrey offered nothing more, not right away. He must have thought it was obvious, what he meant, until he caught Arthur’s renewed frown. “Too many threats have assailed us that could only be defeated by magic, sire. And yet, they _were_ defeated. Magical beasts impervious to mortal blades, poisons with no known cure save magic, and your sister’s attacks, of course.”

“Of course.” Arthur wasn’t sure on all of those, but he could grant Geoffrey’s belief that only magic could counter magic. “And yet, you have said nothing of this, either to my father or to me. If what you say is true, then there has been a sorcerer practicing in the very heart of Camelot. Failure to report that is treason.”

“Forgive me, sire. But your father did know.”

Arthur felt something in chest skip and sink. Whether it were fear or something else, he couldn’t tell. “That cannot be.”

Hesitant, Geoffrey offered, “Perhaps I am mistaken, sire. I am an old man – ”

“You’re hardly in your dodderage, Sir Geoffrey.” Arthur again shuffled at the papers in front of him and then abandoned the distraction. He sank back, legs falling loose along the floor, and rested an elbow on the arm of his chair. He tapped his lips a few times, and then sat straight again. “You are calling my father a hypocrite. You are saying that he flaunted his own laws and allowed safe harbor to a sorcerer.”

“Had your father any inkling of the sorcerer’s identity, he would have executed him.” Geoffrey shifted on his chair to better prop up his bent frame. “You are alive due to magic’s intervention, and he knew it. Even he was saved by it at least once that he knew of, within your lifetime. You are correct that I imply that your father was a hypocrite, but with respect, sire, you did not have to live the life he did, or face those particular threats. The worst of the evil was already gone by the time you were old enough to know what magic was. You did not see the darkness that corrupted it at the end. But you also never had a chance to behold the beauty of it. The promise. Your father did. Whatever else he thought of it, I do still believe that he had hope, somewhere inside of him, that magic could be used for good. But he, too, was damaged, in his own way. And he could not break free from it, or from the knowledge and the horror of what he had done both with magic and against it. There is no simple explanation for anything that your father did, for good or for ill.” Geoffrey shook his head in silent apology. “Uther did not harbor the sorcerer in our midst. He simply did nothing.”

Much as Arthur had, up until now. He could hardly place blame on his father for doing nearly the same thing that Arthur had done with Merlin, though in thinking as much, Arthur effectively highlighted his own hypocrisy too. “I see.” Arthur shook his head and looked down. So he was perhaps no better than his father, allowing magic to serve his own ends, but resolved to discard it as soon as it became…inconvenient. “I suppose I should not be surprised.”

“I am sorry, sire.”

“No need.” Arthur pushed himself straight in the chair. “Tell me. What do you think of the vacant position of Court Physician?”

Geoffrey dithered for a moment, eyed his texts, and then faced Arthur. “Hubert is a good choice, sire. He is a competent physician.”

Arthur gave an exaggerated nod. “But?”

“But I fear that it would be far less profitable for him to take the position at court. His business in the lower town, and amongst the traders, is quite lucrative. He may be resistant to an appointment.”

“I see.” Arthur licked his lips.

“What of Merlin, your highness?”

“What _of_ Merlin?”

Again, Geoffrey vacillated for a moment, as if arranging his thoughts in a manner crafted to be most pleasing to the ear of a monarch. “He is suited to the position as well. He was Gaius’s apprentice for eleven years, and he too is accomplished at the craft.”

“Is he?” Not that Arthur necessarily doubted, but he himself had seen little of Merlin’s skills in practice, other than treatment of battlefield wounds.

“I realize that your highness has not had the benefit of knowing Merlin’s work,” Geoffrey said, “as he tends to limit his practice to his free time. However, many speak well of his talents. I myself have found uncommon relief in his treatments, and I am told that amongst certain of the less fortunate, he is preferred even to Gaius.”

Sometimes, Arthur wondered just how much he missed, being king. “What do you mean?”

“Well.” Geoffrey shifted, uncomfortable. “Certainly your highness is aware that certain…ladies’ complaints can be…delicate matters to handle.”

Arthur tried not to let his eyebrows climb into his hairline, but he failed.

“He is said to have a professional and compassionate manner when needs exceed the skills of the midwives, and that he remains above judgement of the ladies for the manner in which they come by their troubles. Apparently, he also has a…shall I say…delicate touch? Which is often…much appreciated…in certain, erm…delicate matters?”

Arthur blinked. “Right. I think you’ve explained well enough.” He thought, rather ridiculously and shamefully red-faced, of the woman Elise who apparently refused to be handled by anyone but Merlin.

Geoffrey sighed in relief. “Thank you, sire.”

“Right.” He cleared his throat. “Um.”

“He is also quite generous of his time in the lower town.”

“Yes, so I’ve noticed.” Arthur shook his head to dispel the lingering image of Merlin doing physician-ly things with various doe-eyed women. “He serves the poor as Gaius did.”

“Yes, sire. He has a reputation for his effectiveness, and also for his good deeds. He is known to provide food and coin to those of his patients whose sickness is from lack of nourishment.” Geoffrey paused. “And he juggles for the children.”

Arthur shook his head and let out a huff of laughter. “Of course he does.” Then he frowned. “How much of his wages does he give away like this?”

At the sharpness in Arthur’s tone, Geoffrey frowned and tried to play it off as insignificant. “I am sure it is not so much, sire. As I understand, much of it is winnings at gambling dice against the knights.”

A significant amount, then. Arthur thought again of the delicate curl of Merlin’s hands on the pillow in front of his face, and gave an exasperated sigh at the thought of all of the coin he had lost to him over the dice table in the past year. It was probably the same as the juggling – magical cheat. Arthur wanted to be angry, or at least indignant, but it wouldn’t come. “Sometimes, Sir Geoffrey, it occurs to me that my manservant puts me to some shame.”

“Perhaps, he does that to many of us,” Geoffrey offered. “He is a generous lad.”

“Yes,” Arthur muttered, his fingers picking at his lip. “He is.” Arthur took a breath and sat up, dismissing that for later contemplation. At least now he better understood why Merlin wouldn’t invest in much of anything for himself, including proper attire for winter. “The, um….further research that I requested of you. Were you able to find what I asked for?”

Geoffrey glanced down briefly. “I regret, sire, that the records likely did not survive. I am unable to locate any secondary sources either, though I have not yet given up.”

Arthur narrowed his eyes. “Why would genealogical records have been purged?”

Geoffrey started to answer, then shook his head and let the breath go again before saying, “Some, I was ordered to destroy. Your father wished certain things to be forgotten. Others, however… I admit that I am responsible for their loss.”

“How?” Arthur demanded. “Was there a fire, water damage…?”

“No, sire.” Geoffrey cleared his throat and looked at the many tomes covering Arthur’s desk. “A certain quantity of books and scrolls were deemed illicit, having to do with magic. In order to save those, I needed to turn over an equal quantity of other, less valuable material.”

Arthur blinked and tilted his head first at Geoffrey, then at the various records he had been struggling through of late. After a moment, he nodded. “The genealogies and family histories of extinct noble houses would not be missed.”

“I am sorry,” Geoffrey breathed, and he seemed sincere in a way that he rarely was. Arthur had always found him cold and detached for the most part, on account of a nonexistent daft streak, apparently. “There was little time to find a way – ”

Arthur held up his hand and shook his head. “No, you did the right thing. The magical texts were more important to Camelot’s safety than lists of my father’s dead.” It was irreplaceable knowledge, though, just the same.

“If I may, sire, there is one thing that may shed some light,” Geoffrey offered. “It is something Gaius said to me, not two moons past. It jogged a memory that my lord may find of interest.”

Arthur motioned for him to go on, ignoring the covert glances that Geoffrey kept stealing at his parchments.

Geoffrey bowed his head again and shifted some more, the scrape of worn old bones on a hard chair. “Has my lord ever heard the name Myrddin Wyllt?”

Arthur shook his head over a familiar niggling in the back of his mind. “I don’t think so.”

“Mmm. There are, indeed, few now who know of him. But I thought I would ask.”

Arthur made an impatient gesture.

“Yes,” Geoffrey agreed, and a shadow of the vague old man reappeared for a moment. “He was a sorcerer and a seer. And rumored to be the bastard son of Uther’s brother, Aurelius.”

Arthur blinked. “What?”

Geoffrey pressed his lips together and looked down. “The child had no legitimate claim to the throne, if that is your concern.”

“No, it’s…” Arthur shook his head, and forced himself to keep his eyes open. Sorcerer, he had said. “Was he executed?”

“Yes, sire.” Geoffrey’s voice came sure but soft, as if to quiet the blow. “You were young, barely out of toddler’s clothes. I doubt you would recall.”

Arthur blinked several times, his lungs threatening to throw his respiration out of rhythm. “I was present,” he guessed.

“You were a child,” Geoffrey replied, but it was a confirmation just the same. “Myrddin was known for his madness. It is said that the seeing stones stole his wits, or that visions of a terrible future drove him from them.”

There was a burning, nauseous feeling churning in Arthur’s gut. He shook his head and curled his hands into fists. “What has any of this to do with Merlin?”

“Their names, sire.” Geoffrey sounded apologetic for all that he had just put at Arthur’s feet, but his voice remained steady and calm, as if unburdening himself of this tale had finally put something to rest for him as well. “Myrddin in the Cornish tongue is Merlin in ours.”

Arthur breathed deep and looked up.

“Myrddin had a sister. I do not recall her name, but he called to her at his execution, between his ravings at your father. He apologized to her, for the life she would never have. He then claimed that Uther would destroy the balance of the world, and laid your mother’s death at his feet for taking that which was not his to have.”

“What do you mean – what did he take?”

Geoffrey grimaced. “You, sire. He insisted that you were Uther’s to sire, but not to raise – that he would poison you and bring Camelot to ruin by it. He said that you were payment owed to magic. To the old religion.”

Arthur tipped his head up sharply, remembering odd words spoken to him by an old mother in a cave, so many months and a year ago. _Much was changed that should not have been. Many futures which should have been set, were destroyed. You were not meant to learn his ways. You were not meant to have love for him, or to know him as a father. You are poisoned by your love of him…_

“It was nonsense. Again, sire, Myrddin was known for bouts of madness ever since the Battle of Armterid, many years prior to Uther’s ascension.”

“Geoffrey…” Arthur shifted and clasped his hands together. “I must ask. My birth… Was it magic that begot me?”

“I truly do not know,” Geoffrey told him kindly. “There were rumors, of course. But I was not part of your father’s inner circle, so I cannot confirm that. If it is true that you were conceived with the assistance of magic, then some things that happened in those times would make more sense. Your father’s rage at Ygraine’s death, certainly. The inability of healers to stop her bleeding and save her. Uther’s turning on magic and the old religion.”

“The purge?”

Geoffrey bowed his head. “The purge,” he agreed.

Arthur sighed long and deep, resigned to likely never knowing now for certain. “Go on, Geoffrey. Tell me the rest.”

“Of course, sire. Myrddin, eh…”

“He raved against my father,” Arthur reminded him.

“Ah, yes. He claimed that the crystals in his cave showed him what he must do – that you must not be raised in Camelot, or to be a king. He called you by prophetic names – Once and Future, or something like that.”

Arthur gave a start, and made haste to cover his discomfiture under the guise of rearranging his longcoat. _Once and Future King_. He had heard that several times now.

“He claimed that your destiny was tied to him, and that you must be given over to be raised by others who would not corrupt you, and to be completely unknown to your own father, that if you should pass in the street, he should not recognize you,” Geoffrey continued, oblivious. “His obsession with you was…disturbing. And magic of the sort that he possessed, wielded by a madman, is something that even I shudder to contemplate. I regret to say that his death was likely a mercy, in the end, to all of us. Especially to him. That was no way for a man to live.”

Arthur ruminated on the creases of his knuckles. “You don’t speak as if you’re repeating tales, Sir Geoffrey. You knew Myrddin.”

“I would not say that,” Geoffrey denied. “Not exactly. I met him once, here in Camelot, and I heard him around the lower town quite often. Gaius knew him far better, but they were not close either – Myrddin was too erratic. A wild man of the wood.”

“And solely on the basis of a similar name, you assume that this Myrddin Wyllt is somehow connected to Merlin? That’s thin, Sir Geoffrey.”

“Perhaps,” Geoffrey allowed. “But the name is not a common one, and those of the region who would know it would never name a child for the mad prophet of Caermarthon.” He used the common name of the place that time, as if it were a familiar epithet. “It would be considered bad luck, sire.”

Arthur shook his head and leaned back in his chair to pick at his lip, elbow resting loose on the chair arm. “Is there anything definitive linking this man to any of us?”

“Not directly,” Geoffrey admitted. “There is no real proof but the names and coincidence. However, the conversation that I had with Gaius did draw some parallels. That is why I bring it up.”

Arthur gestured him on, though it seemed that perhaps Geoffrey was approaching his dodderage after all.

“I believe it was at the feast of…hmmm… Mabon, possibly.” At Arthur’s impatient look, he waved his hands as if to dispel the fog of his words from the air. “In any case, Gaius mentioned his brother Bleise, who was killed in the last battles that drove Vortigern’s sons and their armies from our lands. We were both somewhat in our cups, so I admit that my memory is rather fuzzy. He spoke at one point of his brother’s wife as the sister of a mad sorcerer, and said that he was glad to have sent their daughter away – his niece – to spare her the sight of all that followed in the purge. Away to Essetir, where she might be safe.”

“Hunith.” Arthur barely even breathed the name.

“There is no way to be certain, sire; Gaius did not name her to me.”

“There is, though. Merlin said once that Gaius was kin. He assumed Gaius was Hunith’s uncle.”

“Such familiarities do not require blood ties,” Geoffrey pointed out. “ _Uncle_ could just as easily be a title of respect for a close friend of the family.”

“Perhaps,” Arthur allowed, but it felt true. “What else is known of him? Wyllt?”

Geoffrey moved his shoulders in something like a shrug. “Very little. He may be the same man referred to by old King Vortigern as Merlinus Ambrosius, who commanded the red and white dragons to fight in the cavern beneath his unfinished keep, and then brought its half-built walls down one final time to bury them. But I could not say for sure.”

 _Dragonlord_ , Arthur thought. On both sides, apparently. Though it would not have been his mother’s blood that passed it to Merlin. “Ambrosius,” he mused.

“Yes. Perhaps in reference to Aurelius. Your uncle was much older than your father, of Vortigern’s generation. Myrddin would not have been much younger than Uther himself, you see. And most men involved in those times and events are long since turned to dust.”

Arthur shook his head. “My father had his own nephew burned at the stake.”

Geoffrey licked his lips. “You must understand, sire. There was still fear at that time of usurpation, and the peace was strained. To have Aurelius’s son, acknowledged or not, challenging the new king’s conduct was far more than simple treason.” He seemed uncomfortable with this conversation, and Arthur could well understand why. In point of fact, any son of Aurelius, bastard or not, even begotten on a commoner, may have had a stronger claim to the throne than Uther. Than Arthur.

“Yes,” Arthur agreed, frowning at the backs of his hands where he set them on the desk. “And if this is true, if Myrddin is who you say, then my father was Merlin’s great-great uncle. Dear gods.” Arthur pressed his thumb and forefinger hard alongside the bridge of his nose.

“Possibly. That assumes that Myrddin’s sister was a full-blooded sister, and not half, as I believe is far more likely. I don’t believe that she was Aurelius’ daughter – Gaius would have left some indication if that were true, as it would have meant an alternate bloodline existed with claims to the crown. Given your status as sole and only heir, and the inherent danger of your position as both prince and knight, it would have mattered that other heirs of Uther’s father’s bloodline existed, should you be killed at some point. It is far more likely that they shared a mother, and no more.”

“Myrddin himself fathered no children?” Arthur asked.

“Certainly not, sire. He was a hermit and followed the old religion’s ways concerning the gift of prophecy. He would have taken no woman, wife or otherwise.”

“A small mercy, that.” There was nothing to be done anymore about knowledge that had been lost, and Arthur regretfully dismissed it with a deep exhalation. He had long since resigned himself to the dichotomy of his father – the man Arthur loved, still, even after all he had learned, and the man who killed children in cold blood simply for being born with a skill he didn’t like. To learn that his madness extended to his own family was far less a shock than it should have been. “Balinor, then. What can you tell me of him?”

“He was well respected, in his time,” Geoffrey replied. “And he was one of the few able to command the Great Dragon. His lands laid northwest of here, in the mountains, and was once home to many dragons, and to many clutches of eggs which may still be hidden there in the caverns and vales. He was an ally to your father and Camelot for many years during the struggle against Vortigern and the early waves of Saxons. That, of course, soured with the purge, and the eradication of the dragons. Your majesty already knows, of course, of the imprisonment of the Great Dragon, and Balinor’s flight from these lands. I am afraid that of his life and deeds, there is little left in the records of that either. He was a skilled fighter, and if not for his unique status, may have qualified to be a knight. He was not known to have married or fathered children, but of course, we do know of his son now.”

Arthur bit his lip. “You can show me on a map which lands he once held?”

“Of course. It is here.” Geoffrey reached for one of the documents folded and sealed with wax and a crest that Arthur did not recognize. “The lands were awarded him by King Budick of Cornwall, and your father allowed the claim to remain when he won the crown.”

Arthur took a breath and nodded. “I would like this formalized for court as soon as possible. How long would that take?”

For a moment, Geoffrey appeared puzzled. “The land claim, sire?”

“The title documents, yes. When can it be finished?”

Geoffrey didn’t answer right away, but instead peered carefully at Arthur for a longer time than was proper for a subject to examine his monarch. “Sire…with respect. Surely you understand the breadth of what this will mean, should you announce it at court.”

“I understand fully, Sir Geoffrey.” Arthur blinked back at him, nonplussed. “Do you wish to argue against it?”

“No,” Geoffrey breathed. “It will take several days, however. I must confirm that the claim is not taken or broken apart, and I do have some records still to check that may yield further information.” He appeared paler than he had a moment ago, and though he had gone still in his chair, something about him seemed more animated – something, perhaps, in the outline of his body set against the rest of the room, or in the silhouette of his features shadowed by the firelight at his back. “You _will_ face opposition, restoring a dragonlord’s son to the noble class.”

“That is not all that I am doing. Merlin is, himself, a dragonlord.”

Geoffrey stared at him for a long moment, and then cast a harried look at the door separating them from the rest of the castle. “The sorcerer,” he breathed in realization. He focused sharply back on Arthur, the mask of the old man gone. “You are going to lift the ban on magic, and restore a sorcerer to the noble class – to the court and council of Camelot.”

“Surely, you had an inkling?” Arthur prodded. “After all of these strange reading requests?”

“Yes, but I never thought… It was an abstract, sire. I assumed that you would allow for some necessary defensive magic, perhaps. Or that you wished to better understand your sister, or extend a peace offering to the Druids. But you do not propose to simply make use of some small magic. You propose to undo your father’s laws completely.”

“Do you think Merlin undeserving of that?”

This snapped Geoffrey out of his dazed disbelief. “With respect, sire, you cannot contemplate enacting something of this magnitude for the sake of one man, no matter what he has done for Camelot.”

Arthur gave him a sour look. “That actually sounds like something Merlin might say.”

“Then he is not as daft as he pretends,” Geoffrey replied. “The boy has lived under direct threat of these laws for over a decade, and never once, to my knowledge, advocated their undoing.”

“He’s done the opposite, actually,” Arthur confirmed, his mind turning to Mordred and the disir. _There can be no place for magic in Camelot_ , said the sorcerer sat at the right hand of the king. “Though I still have no idea why.”

“Don’t you, sire?” Geoffrey studied him carefully. “He is your servant, and his loyalty to you is, quite frankly, uncommon. He would never advocate something so dangerous.”

“Then you do oppose what I am considering.”

Geoffrey thought about that for a moment, and then to Arthur’s surprise, shook his head. “No. But it has been…a long time. Many of your people, nobles and commoners alike, have never known the world you propose to foist on them. It will cause unrest. It may even threaten your hold on the crown if anyone perceives this as coerced in any way, as by an enchantment or even just affection for one you favor.”

“I don’t expect it to be easy for them to accept,” Arthur acknowledged. But Merlin deserved to be recognized for all that he had done for Camelot, and Arthur could not do that without also recognizing _what_ he was. Of course, it helped that everyone seemed to like Merlin; Arthur could think of no better face to put forward to show the goodness of magic. “But I believe that it is the right path.”

Geoffrey’s face softened. “I beg you to consider the ramifications in finer detail. You propose to reveal your servant as a sorcerer. Any anger or distrust of your decision will fall on him. You may very well place his life in considerable danger, no matter your good intentions.”

A flash of anger mobilized Arthur to sit forward, but he refrained from striking the desktop as he wanted to do. “My kingdom is already in a state of unrest – my father saw to that. There is fear on every face when I so much as glance at the scaffold. The accusation of sorcery is used for petty revenge or to put brutal ends to neighbors’ disputes. And that is to say nothing of the fact that we make enemies of peoples of magic simply by existing – of people who don’t _have to be_ our enemies! What else would you have me do? This cannot continue – it will tear Camelot apart, as my sister nearly did. And for what? To protect a persecution that is in direct opposition to the oath I swore when you placed the crown on my head?”

“I am not disagreeing with you,” Geoffrey placated. “I am only advising caution.” He tipped his head away toward the closed door beyond which the rest of the castle was bedding down to sleep. “You care for him, sire. It is obvious to anyone with eyes to look. For his sake, you must be practical. You are not the one who will bear the brunt of the consequences if events go ill. And if he is indeed the sorcerer to whom we owe our many reprieves, ruining his anonymity and safety would be a poor repayment for his services.”

The calm delivery doused Arthur’s anger, and he subsided back into his chair, his spine curving into an unkingly slouch. “I do know that, Sir Geoffrey.”

“Then I only ask that you exercise care and patience. And regardless of my hesitance, be assured that you have my full support.” He gestured at his rather portly and arthritic figure, his expression wry. “Such as it is.”

Arthur chuckled softly, but his words were sincere and his mind troubled when he said, “Thank you, Sir Geoffrey. I will think on what you have said.”

* * *

It was rather late by the time Arthur finished touring the castle, checking in with the knights on duty and making a surprise inspection of the garrisons on the south wall. Not that they really needed it, any of them; security was much better under Arthur’s reign than his father’s and he hadn’t had cause for concern in…well, about a year, actually. He had tightened things up quite a bit after Guinevere’s death, too little too late. He just couldn’t sleep after spending the entire day in bed, and yet he didn’t have a mind for reading reports either. His thoughts remained slightly scattered after speaking with Geoffrey, and he found himself trying desperately to remember attending the execution of his cousin at his father’s hand. It was not pleasant, this effort. He needed a distraction – hard to come by in a sleeping citadel.

Arthur’s let his feet lead him where they would, and unsurprisingly, he found himself contemplating the door of the infirmary well into the third watch. The torches guttered in the breeze blowing in from the practice fields even though the doors remained closed and barred at this hour. He imagined he could hear Gaius, commenting offhand to Arthur’s back that Merlin might die for him some day. It seemed ironic that of all the people who Gaius might choose to haunt, he didn’t choose his all-but-son.

With nowhere else to go this late, and nothing better to do, Arthur knocked and cracked open the door to see if Merlin were still awake. The light inside burned low, but he could still make out the line of Merlin’s back where he sat beside the sick cot. He looked up at the creak of the door and then murmured something to the woman sat on the other side of the cot. Arthur watched him run a comforting hand over the woman’s shoulder as she nodded, and then Merlin extricated himself from the scene to see what Arthur needed. It was only as he moved away that Arthur saw the figure on the cot, covered in blankets, still except for a subtle undulation of the chest as she breathed.

“Sire?” Merlin blocked most of the room with his body, his voice low in deference to his patient.

Arthur nodded past Merlin’s shoulder. “Is that Elise?”

Merlin glanced back too, briefly, and then faced Arthur again with his head down. “And her mother.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

Merlin looked up, past Arthur’s ear, his bottom lip caught for a moment in his teeth. His tongue flickered out to sooth and wet the place he’d bitten, and then he shook his head and tried to motion Arthur out into the hall.

Arthur slipped inside instead, forcing Merlin back a step, and leaned against the door to close it. He watched the woman sat beside the cot start to rise, her face pale and splotchy, and motioned her to remain seated. She ducked her head as she sank back and focused on the woman in the cot instead, face averted to offer a veneer of privacy to the king.

“Arthur – “

“What’s wrong with her?” Arthur repeated, ignoring the subtle rebuke in Merlin’s tone.

Merlin made a frustrated noise and glanced back again. Then he crowded in closer to Arthur and said, “She got with child and tried to expel it herself, with some herb mixture she bought in the street. And now she’s hemorrhaged and – ” He twitched his shoulders, as Arthur should know the rest.

Arthur shook his head. “And?” he demanded obnoxiously.

Merlin blinked and puffed out a scornful breath. “And she’s dying,” he hissed. He immediately looked over his shoulder, his posture screaming of guilt for saying it like that in front of the mother. When he turned back to Arthur, he was irritated and more upset than before. “Look, this is likely the last night she will ever spend with her daughter. Can you just be a decent human being for once and leave?”

Arthur choked down his first reaction, which was to cuff Merlin upside the head and dress him down for his insolence. Because he was right – having the king barge in and demand to be let into a woman’s private affairs while her daughter died between them was somewhat inconsiderate. “Can’t you do something for her?”

“No,” Merlin moaned quietly, as if willing Arthur to feel some kind of empathy he wasn’t capable of. “If she’d taken to bed when the bleeding started, maybe, but she didn’t want anyone to know, and she kept working until – ” He waggled a hand to indicate the scene behind him.

Arthur shook his head. “But there must be something.”

“There’s nothing, sire. She’s dying. I can’t stop the bleeding; it’s too heavy, and too deep inside.”

“No.” Arthur didn’t even know this girl, but he couldn’t accept that she would die for something so – so inconsequential. Or, however inconsequential ending the quickening of the womb could be, he didn’t know. “There must be something _you_ can do, Merlin.”

Merlin bared his teeth, preparatory no doubt to telling Arthur off, and then the breath he’d worked up huffed out through his teeth as it occurred to him what Arthur was asking. He straightened, his face going slack, and blinked at Arthur with wide eyes as he breathed, “I can’t.”

“Surely there’s something you can try,” Arthur insisted. He spoke over the way Merlin had started shaking his head with increasing vehemence. “Anything.”

“I can’t do that. Arthur, no.” His voice had grown thick with an emotion that Arthur didn’t understand. “Too many things could go wrong, I might just make it worse – ”

“How much worse could it get,” Arthur demanded. “She’s dying. There’s nothing more to lose, and if there’s even a chance – ”

“Please.”

Arthur broke off and looked up, startled to find Elise’s mother standing close behind Merlin.

“Please,” she said again, trembling and desperate. “If there’s something you can do…”

Merlin just kept shaking his head, and now he raised his hands between himself and Arthur as if to keep him back. “No. That’s not an option.”

Arthur stepped forward when he stepped back. “It is an option. Merlin, I’ve seen what you can do.”

“It won’t work!” Merlin snapped.

“Like it didn’t work on my father?”

Merlin may have stopped breathing, he went so still so suddenly.

It was the mother who spoke first into the silence, strong with a mother’s ferocity in her grief. “I will do anything,” she vowed, looking back and forth between them. “Anything, I am _begging_ you. If there is even the slightest chance of it helping, please. _Please_. She’s all I have.”

Merlin’s eyes were like saucers in his head, and Arthur forced himself to hold that gaze and stay calm for it. Finally, Merlin breathed, “It’s not permitted.”

“I am permitting it,” Arthur replied, steady.

Merlin started to say something, stopped, and tried desperately to maintain his composure even as his erratic breathing betrayed him. “I don’t have any skill in that. I could kill her.”

Arthur nodded, his sinuses going tight and stuffy because he knew Merlin was a sorcerer, but Merlin didn’t know that Arthur was aware of which one. “She’s already dying, Dragoon.” He watched Merlin’s chest stutter as he stepped back, catching his bottom lip hard in his teeth as his face went crumply with denial. “There isn’t any more harm you could do.”

“You – ” Merlin’s mouth worked over nothing but fitful breaths and his own disbelief, or whatever else it was that made his eyes go glassy and his hands shake. “You…no.”

Arthur advanced on him quickly, before he could back any further away, and grabbed at his biceps to hold him still. Merlin put up his arms too late to block, his fingers dangling useless between their bodies, curled like the legs of dead insects “You have the knowledge, and she is dying. You have to try. I am telling you – your king is telling you – to _try_. Isn’t this what magic is for? Hm? If not this, then what?”

Beside them, Elise’s mother was doing an admirable job of keeping her peace, but her expression and the thin line of her mouth spoke volumes. Arthur nodded to her, and she pressed a handkerchief hard into her mouth to stifle herself, as if hope were the most painful thing she could have been given. And maybe it was. Hope was treacherous, after all. As she stepped back, Arthur looked again to Merlin, only to find him having a small panic in Arthur’s face. “Merlin?”

Merlin breathed on him, too fast and hard, air sour from too many hours of stress, and nodded. It looked more like he was flapping his head, really, but good enough. Arthur let him go and moved away to give him space to collect himself. Merlin just stood there for a beat too long, like a deer caught in the woods waiting for the bolt to hit before it ran. Then he swiveled one way, stopped himself, and spun away in the other direction to paw through the shelves of herbs and remedies. Arthur left him to it.

Arthur moved over to the cot and lowered himself to the stool that Merlin had vacated. The girl, Elise…she was so young. Too young, surely, to be got with child. “How did this happen…” He gave the mother an expectant look.

“Letha, sire.”

Arthur smiled, small and reassuring, at Elise’s mother. “How did this happen, Letha?”

“We were short of coin,” she admitted. “I didn’t know she was doing it. She told me she was selling trinkets she made from scraps and bits of stone she found on the river, but she – ” Letha broke off as if she were physically incapable of saying what her daughter had actually been doing. “We didn’t need the coin that bad. She should never – If it came to that, it should have been me, not her.” She shook her head, her composure dissolving into tears and a single, sharp hiccup like bile. “Never her,” she whispered. Spindly fingers reached out and smoothed Elise’s hair back, the loving touch of a mother tucking stray hairs away from the face of her beautiful child.

Arthur blinked. He had no words, only the image of this…child…pale and unmoving on the cot before him, translucent like a corpse even while the breath still moved in her. How did this happen? How could _this_ happen in his city? “This is not right,” he grated.

Letha glanced up, her expression nearly as dead as her daughter. “No,” she agreed. “And yet it happens every day.”

“Alright,” Merlin broke in, startling them both with his anxious jittering as he appeared at the head of the cot. He had a small sheaf of evergreen herbs and sage in one hand, and he looked about ready to vomit. _I hope_ , Dragoon had told him, stood over the dying body of Arthur’s father, _one day you will see me in a different light._ Arthur couldn’t see the slightest bit of that crazy old man in Merlin now, but years had passed since then, and even Arthur could see the erosion of the confidence that Merlin had once worn with his youth. He gave Arthur a wobbly smile full of teeth and terror.

Arthur stood, but instead of moving away, he came up close and framed Merlin’s face in his hands. Merlin went still, shocked into immobility, and his wild eyes focused with startling precision on Arthur’s face. “This girl is not my father. What happened that day has no bearing on this. You can save her. I want to see you save her.”

Merlin’s eyes turned glassy but he nodded and took a fortifying breath before Arthur let him go. Still, he warned, “It might not work,” and looked up at Letha. “I might…”

Letha nodded to spare him the need to say it. “I know the risks.” She glanced sidelong at Arthur as well, and then back to her daughter. “But I will pay any price for the chance of her life.” Her eyes found Arthur’s again. “I will burn for it if I must.”

“No one will be burnt for this,” Arthur promised. “Those days are over. I made a promise.” He shifted his gaze to Merlin, who avoided it.

Merlin stood still at the head of the cot for several moments, apparently to gather his courage. He wasn’t playing Dragoon, after all. He was just Merlin, deliberately doing magic in front of the king he still didn’t entirely trust not to hurt him for it. Arthur considered how decades of living in fear could warp someone so much that promises and honor meant nothing when faced with the secret he guarded literally with his life. Merlin was so trusting, Arthur thought. He truly was. About everything but this. Magic.

The candles guttered in a draft and Merlin reset his feet, still breathing like he might be strangled in a moment. Finally, he moved around to the side of the cot and knelt down with the bundle of evergreen and sage held out over Elise’s stomach with both hands. He licked his lips and exhaled harsh through his nose as the herbs began smoking. There was a terrible moment, as the scent wafted to Arthur’s nostrils where he stood back from the cot, where his eyes swam and the royal chambers seemed to shimmer before him. His father in bed, ashen already and covered in the scent of a slow death. And Dragoon looking at him with such sadness and regret, all but begging Arthur to see the goodness that magic could be before he cast his spell and killed the king.

Arthur shook himself free of the vision and the false picture it gave of the sorcerer in front of him. Merlin still looked terrified, but he was also determined, waving his smoking branch over the girl and concentrating on her while Letha backed away as if she had only just realized what would happen. Or perhaps seeing it was something entirely separate from its contemplation beforehand. Arthur had not been prepared for the immediacy of the magic he had seen performed on his father, he knew that. He had never in his life been more afraid of what he had sought out and allowed to happen. The sensation of it was like knives to the stomach, piercing and jarring, wrenching his view of the world just a few inches to one side at the realization of it. Like falling from the ramparts and knowing the ground would come soon.

“Efencume ætgædre.”

Arthur’s breath caught briefly in his lungs at the incantation, and he forced his hands to unclench again at his sides.

“Eala gastas cræftige: gestricie pis lic forod.” Merlin’s eyes flared gold for a moment, and then he gasped and dropped the herbs as they disintegrated into a sudden fall of ash over Elise’s abdomen.

No one moved at first, and then Merlin leaned forward to check for a heartbeat. He blinked a few times, rapid and anxious, then put his hands over her abdomen and repeated, “Efencume ætgædre, eala gastas cræftige: gestricie pis lic forod.”

Arthur stepped forward, his stomach in his boots.

“Efencume ætgædre, eala gastas cræftige: gestricie pis lic forod!” Merlin’s eyes glowed again, a flash of amber unearthly in the dim candlelight, and nothing happened.

Oh gods. Arthur had known that it might not work, that it might be a repeat of his father’s demise, but it had never occurred to him that _nothing_ might happen. And that was worse, like Guinevere all over again – he knew the look on Merlin’s face, sick with desperation.

“Þurhhæle dolgbenn.” The set of Merlin’s mouth turned stubborn, a thing born of waning hope and sorrow. “Licsar ge staðol nu! Come on.”

Arthur looked to Letha, who had her eyes closed and her mouth hidden in a scrap of cloth. Tears squeezed from the corners of her eyes but she made no move to speak.

Merlin scrambled closer on his knees and felt along Elise’s stomach, then a bit lower, where the womb sits. He mumbled something more with a flutter of gold in his eyes and seemed to be looking through her skin. “Ichthe thor heale, thænu licsar.”

He should never have pushed Merlin into this. “Merlin.”

“Þurhhæle licsar min!” Merlin shouted it that time, and Arthur jumped at the sensation more than the sight of it, like the sound of seared meat. Merlin hissed and snatched his hands back as if burnt, and Elise… Oh. Elise arched up and gasped, her eyes flying open in shock.

“Lisey?” Letha scrambled forward and over her daughter’s body.

Elise sat up, her chest heaving, and looked at Merlin in confusion before noticing her mother. “Mumma.”

The obvious place to look was at Letha grasping onto her daughter fierce as if to protect her from harm through sheer force of her embrace, but Arthur was looking at Merlin where he had flung himself back, small against the wall and covering his mouth to hold in whatever reaction threatened to come out.

“Don’t you ever do that again!” Letha was crying. “Do you hear me, child? The coin is not worth your life – I’d eat sawdust before I’d sell you for bread. You’re _precious_!”

Arthur knelt down in the space between the cot and the wall to pry Merlin’s hand from his face. It went stiffly and Merlin made a guttural noise deep in his chest as Arthur pulled at him. As if it hurt to save a life. As if it were tearing him apart to see what he’d done. “It’s alright. You did good.”

“Oh, gods.” Merlin slid across the stone floor in a heap as Arthur pulled, shaking, his breath like tattered flags of war shredded in a brutal wind. “Oh gods. Oh gods.”

Arthur managed to pull him far enough out that he could get one hand on the back of Merlin’s neck and push it down before he hyperventilated and passed out. “Breathe, Merlin. It’s over now.”

Merlin twisted briefly in protest and then let himself be repositioned to sag against Arthur’s chest, his every exhalation tinged with the slightest bit of sound like a distant hum. His fingers came up to dig into Arthur’s arm, nails like the prongs of an anchor gouged into the seabed. “I did it.” Merlin laughed suddenly, his ribcage a stuttering in hysterical spasms under Arthur’s hand.

In spite of himself, Arthur laughed too, only then realizing that his cheeks were wet and his nose stuffed, and he was crying like a bloody girl. “You did it,” he agreed, his voice pitched higher than usual, like a giggle.

The tense lines of Merlin’s limbs uncoiled as he laughed, breathless and stupid, and Arthur couldn’t help how infectious it was; he found himself gripping onto Merlin like a boy giggling at children’s play, just…happy. There was a weight gone from his shoulders that he hadn’t even realized he carried, as if he needed to see this – needed to know that his belief in the possible good uses of magic were not a delusion. And maybe Merlin had needed to see that too, really. Arthur suspected that most of the magic he had done in his life consisted of violence and killing, albeit in Arthur’s name or defense. That kind of thing could exact a terrible toll from a man, to never see the good in his own works.

Arthur looked up from the mop of Merlin’s hair and the sloppy mess of giggling sorcerer in his arms to find Letha smiling at them, her face warm and genuine in her gratitude. “Thank you, my king.”

It shouldn’t have made his throat burn to be called that, rather than just _sire_ , but the conviction of it could have wounded him. He nodded, unable to say anything that wouldn’t come out as gibberish. He patted Merlin upside the head though to make it clear who she should be thanking, and then he grinned when Merlin took a swat at him for it. Because Merlin had that look on his face again that Arthur hadn’t seen in ages – the one with the smile that reached his eyes.

***

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the long wait! It was a longer couple of chapters, and I had to redo them like seven times... Picky writer is picky, lol.


	5. Chapter 5

_“Have you always slept on the floor?” Arthur stared at the thatched ceiling of the little hut in Ealdor, aware of the dirt beneath his back, cold and lumpy, and damp even through the cushioning of cloak and bedroll. This place could barely be classified as a house; it was more akin to the stables in Camelot, fit for horses and pigs, maybe dogs. But not people. Even the poor in Camelot lived in better places than this._

_“Yeah. The bed I’ve got in Camelot’s a luxury by comparison.”_

_Perhaps he needed to keep Merlin’s origins in mind more often. If this was where he’d been raised, then his complete lack of manners or social skills made much more sense. It was a miracle he was functional at court at all, really. But it did beg the question: where on earth had he gained an education, growing up here? He was an idiot, but he wasn’t stupid; Gaius wouldn’t keep a useless apprentice, family or no. “It must have been hard.”_

_“Mm. It’s like rock.”_

_Oh, for god’s sake. “I didn’t mean the ground,” Arthur bit out. Seriously, the boy must suffer some mental affliction. Poverty alone could not account for the depth of his obliviousness. “I meant, for you – it must’ve been difficult.”_

_“Mm, not really. I didn’t know any different.”_

_Or perhaps it wasn’t obliviousness? Maybe Merlin’s reply, that yes the ground was hard, was the normal one for a peasant to make? After all, as he said, he’d known no differently. If it was just how he lived, how he’d always lived, why would he consider it difficult? It was only Arthur who wasn’t accustomed to this kind of place._

_“Life’s simple out here,” Merlin continued. Arthur could detect something wistful in his voice, but it wasn’t the longing that other men held for their homes or homelands, or their lost youth. It was yearning for something he’d never had, which made no sense, seeing as Merlin did have that, and could have kept it if he’d wanted to. “You eat what you grow and everyone pitches in together. As long as you’ve got food on the table and a roof over your head, you’re happy.”_

_The whole idea of that – that this life, calling a livestock hut your home and being happy about it – Arthur couldn’t comprehend not wanting something better. Clean floors, at least. A mattress. Meat for breakfast. A few dogs barked outside in the darkness and Arthur tried not to let his disgust come out in his voice. “Sounds…” He thought about it for a moment, how to finish that. Boring, awful, cold, dirty…hard… “…nice.”_

_“You’d hate it.” There was a wry sort of mirth in Merlin’s voice._

_“No doubt,” Arthur agreed, because yes, he would. But perhaps it wasn’t the accommodations that mattered. Sometimes, he longed for simplicity, to be free of the city and the crown in a way that hunting trips alone could not accomplish. There was, he admitted silently, a certain allure to living in peace like this where the only care was to tend your fields and shore up your home for the winter, defend your harvest and perhaps share your hearth with someone special. No wars, no politics, no fevered crusades against people who didn’t seem evil. No father to fail to please at every turn. Perhaps this kind of life wasn’t all that difficult at all. “Why’d you leave?”_

_A weariness invaded the small space where they two of them lay toe to head. “Things just…changed.”_

_“How?” It surprised him to realize that he actually wanted to know. Merlin didn’t reply, though, and it seemed he didn’t intend to, so Arthur jabbed his toes in the general direction of Merlin’s nostrils. “Come on, stop pretending to be interesting.” Merlin cringed away and shoved at his foot. Arthur obliged and retreated back to his side of the unspoken line between them in the cramped space. “Tell me.”_

_Merlin snorted with soft laughter and Arthur wondered, not for the first time, if this were one of those things that others referred to as the ridiculous antics of young boys. Because he wasn’t sure; he’d never really played like this, or teased. He didn’t have a…a William when he was growing up, the way Merlin apparently had._

_But when Merlin replied, there was something in his tone that sounded sad, and maybe a little hurt. “I just didn’t fit in anymore. I wanted to find somewhere that I did.”_

_It sounded like the truth, but Arthur also knew that coming to Camelot had been Merlin’s mother’s doing. She had_ sent _him. Arthur wondered if Merlin would have left Ealdor of his own volition, had she not done so, and if he had, would it still have been Camelot he came to? Arthur wasn’t quite naïve or arrogant enough to deny that if Merlin had not come when he did, Arthur would have died by now, either by daggers or by poison. So it mattered, why he came. Why he left. Why he stayed, even. Arthur let himself start to smile, because that last one, he thought he might be able to guess at. “Had any luck?”_

_“I’m not sure yet.”_

_It was said with such finality – the edges of the words sharp and brittle – that Arthur had to squash the urge to demand what that meant, or worse, reassure him that he did fit in, at Camelot, with Arthur. He definitely couldn’t admit that Merlin’s response made his stomach burn hollow for a moment with let-down. Because that would be stupid, and Arthur was a prince. Who was Merlin, anyway? Arthur shifted, uncomfortable, and refused to identify any of what he felt as insult or hurt. He didn’t care if Merlin was happy in Camelot. Why would he? “We’ll start training the men tomorrow.” He squirmed his way over onto his side, facing away from Merlin’s stupid feet and the dirt discoloring his toes. “It’s gonna be a long day,” he groaned. “Get the candle.”_

_Merlin shuffled around after a moment’s hesitation and the room went dark. The signature scent of charred wick and cooling tallow smoked into the small space. It bothered Arthur that he still wanted to say something more – something kind, or something angry, he didn’t know which. It shouldn’t matter. Merlin shouldn’t matter._

_Arthur at least possessed enough self-awareness to realize that if that were true, though, he wouldn’t be here. However much the injustice of Ealdor’s plight offended him as a knight, he wouldn’t have come if it weren’t for Merlin setting off first like some incompetent errant in shining rags. He’d have been killed, and Arthur didn’t know how a peasant could face what even knights quailed at – insurmountable odds and certain death for a principle, and nothing more. Arthur had no idea what to do with that realization, because even he could tell that this was barely a home to his servant – that wasn’t what Merlin had come here to defend. None of the villagers, aside from that William boy, so much as gave him the time of day. Some even glared at him, sneered, or sketched superstitious gestures at him as if he were some kind of fae child. Obviously, he didn’t fit here. It was ungracious of Arthur to be glad about that, since it meant that Merlin wouldn’t likely stay past the current crisis. Was it selfish of Arthur to hope that Merlin remained unwelcome here, so that he would have no choice but to return to Camelot? To stay with Arthur? After all, it wasn’t like Merlin really had anywhere else to go._

*** * ***

Arthur pulled the door shut behind him as he exited the physician’s quarters, leaving Elise and her mother to sleep on the cot they had both curled up on. Merlin was still puttering around in there, moving things aimlessly and straightening with a nervous sort of energy. When Arthur tried to stop him, he mumbled something about how Gaius would be appalled at the disarray. As far as Arthur knew, though, the place had always been cluttered, but perhaps there was an order to it that he hadn’t noticed. In any case, Merlin was faffing about, alternately smiling and wringing his hands, and shooting Arthur worried looks, which was driving Arthur round the bend. If he didn’t know what Camelot was like – what he himself had been like since Merlin met him – he might have been insulted at how Merlin still seemed uncertain that he wouldn’t be arrested for the magic he had done on the girl. As if the tree in Arthur’s chambers weren’t itself a hanging offense, technically. As if Arthur hadn’t been crying like a maiden aunt right alongside him just a few short hours ago, ecstatic at what he’d witnessed.

Exhaustion was creeping up on Arthur now that most of the night was gone. Sometimes, he really did wish that he could be anyone but the king. He wanted a single day to feel normal again, except he had no idea anymore what normal even entailed. Was that a hunting trip without a gaggle of royal guards trailing him? A lie in? A boring day at council? Maybe none of his days had ever been normal, and he would never know what it meant to have one that was. He wondered what normal was like in Ealdor, with Merlin young and smiling, still unscathed by the horrors of the world, and Arthur barely any better, not yet quite a man. Arthur had led his first raid at fourteen though. To be as young as Merlin had been when they met, a carefree boy on the cusp of adulthood, Arthur would have to have been…what, ten? Had he been that young even then, toddling along in his father’s shadow, under the pall of the fallout from his birth? Maybe someone who had seen so many executions from the time he could walk that they blurred unrecognizably together could never be normal. Maybe the memory of riding high on his smiling father’s shoulders, crunching apple slices and watching the flames burn down before bedtime could never be undone.

With a grim shake of his head, Arthur made his way up to the royal apartments. Arthur wondered when, exactly, their lives had started to unravel, because that was what it felt like. Everything was wrong, and neither of them could keep going at this rate. He needed a holiday soon. For now, he felt functional if tired, but if these late nights and early starts continued much longer, it would start to show. And he felt certain that Merlin was even worse off at the moment, especially considering his infirmity. They would have to account for that at some point; this lack of rest and regular meals would only make Merlin more susceptible to fits. And he needed to mourn. Even Arthur knew that, but Merlin didn’t seem willing yet. Arthur knew what that felt like. He had blamed himself for the magic that finally claimed Uther for a long time after, no matter that it came at Merlin’s hand. The echo of that ache still remained - the idea that because of his guilt, his complicity, he had no right to mourn – to miss his father. He didn’t want Merlin feeling that way too just because he wasn’t able to help in time.

Arthur pushed into his private chambers and took a deep breath of being alone. He hated the isolation of who he was, and yet sometimes, he couldn’t stand the feeling of being surrounded all of the time. There was a comfort and presence to his chambers that he hadn’t noticed until it was George, not Merlin, doing most of the cleaning up. Right now, the place was too sterile, everything placed too perfectly and put away, the bed too crisp with its fresh linens. But the ridiculous tree was where Arthur had left it, at least, and there were three new fruit bowls spaced evenly around it, full of apples. It was the most ludicrous thing, and he smiled at it all because it did feel of Merlin, awkward and gangly and concealed beneath a thin, plain draping, planted somewhere it shouldn’t thrive.

Beyond the windowpanes, the sky glowed in anticipation of sunrise, but the air retained the chill of the evening, and Arthur rubbed his hands over his biceps as he shuffled across the room. He stepped into the quiet of the back corridor, where only the royal occupants, his personal guard, and a few favored servants could go. He glanced around for signs of life, but it seemed that no one was about yet. Relieved and embarrassed at his furtive tendencies, he walked slowly down to Guinevere’s door and waited long enough in front of it to be certain that no one would approach. It was rare to find this corridor deserted, no matter its privacy. Once assured that he was entirely alone, Arthur grasped the keys at his hip and looked at the little keyhole before him as if it were an insurmountable quest, or an enchanted cave where he might be forced to confront the shade of his true self. Arthur breathed in the congested manner of a chest cold, swaying lightly on his feet until his body tilted far enough to bring his forehead into contact with the wood.

A dull thunk sounded out softly in the silence and Arthur took a deep, almost desperate breath, his lungs burning as he dropped the keys to hang again from his belt and pressed both of his palms to the smooth grain. “Good morning, Guinevere.” He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but his exhalation carried the words of their own accord. “I’m going to do something today. You would be happy, I think. You always liked Merlin.”

He shook his head, eyes shut tight in shame as he recalled Guinevere’s sudden chill toward Merlin, and the way that it must have hurt and confused him at first. It was yet another warning sign that he failed to heed. She would never have suspected Merlin of trying to poison anyone, least of all Arthur. He wondered what it said about himself that he only learned of his wife’s actions because he evidently trusted his servant more – noticed Merlin’s odd behavior and discontent before seeing the chill in the eyes of his queen. He still didn’t know where Merlin had actually been for two days, or how he somehow fell hard enough to leave the bruising Arthur had seen, or how he came to be poisoned in an obvious attempt to keep him out of the way of the assassination attempt. He must have tried to act against Morgana or break the curse on Guinevere himself, alone, rather than asking Arthur for help. No, Arthur had to spy on and follow his own wife, with Merlin scrambling after him, attempting to stop him, before any of that truth had come out. It shamed Arthur to realize that he had behaved so appallingly in the past when warned of treachery in his household that Merlin couldn't come to him with that. 

"I miss you.” The words didn’t carry far enough to echo, but Arthur felt exposed just the same, as if he were on trial before the whole of his kingdom. He struggled to force it back down, the guilt, before it choked him, because it wasn’t healthy, this repetition of a pointless penance. Once calm again, Arthur rubbed his brow against the warming spot of wood where he leaned against the door.  The grain, soft whorls of worn chestnut, pulled gently across his skin like fingers trying in vain to soothe him. “I saw magic today. It was…miraculous. I wish you could have seen it too.” He smoothed his brow back and forth, back and forth on the wood grain and wondered if ten years now, he will have worn a depression into it like a worry stone. “Merlin is still afraid of me – of what I might do to him for the magic. I don’t know what to do to stop it. You could have explained it. I know he’s hurt, and it’s my fault for the things he’s seen me do, but I don’t understand how to fix it. I made a vow never to light another pyre. It’s not enough.” He closed his eyes and inhaled, trying in vain to catch her scent, or the soft sound of a swish of her dress beyond the wood. “The girl he saved… How many others have I condemned to die by vilifying magic? How many deaths does Merlin carry on his conscience for doing nothing because of my laws?” He shook his head; it was on him, ultimately, and no one else. “I’m going to make things right,” he told her, voice stronger now. “The things I still can, at least. Because I can’t do this anymore, Guinevere. You told me, so many times, and I didn’t want to listen. I can’t be my father. I can’t make him proud of my rule. It will kill me to try.” He swallowed, forcing the lump in his throat back down with his sorrow and whatever else swam up behind his tongue that he couldn’t bring himself to consider yet. “My kingdom is divided. I’m…divided. And we can’t live like this any longer. There has to be an end.” He pressed his face harder to the door as if he could force the tears that threatened out of himself and into the wood where no one but Guinevere would see. “I miss you _so much_. So does Merlin. I wish you could have seen him today. I’m going to make him Court Physician. He’s earned it, hasn’t he? You would be proud of him.”

Arthur closed his eyes again and imagined her smile, gentle and wreathed in a glow whether she wore jewels or just flowers in her hair, or nothing at all. He imagined her trying to contain her joy at seeing Merlin elevated to a position that fit his character, that he deserved – at witnessing him recognized for the good and kind man, the selfless man, that he was. Finally. They would have all dined together later this day, he thought – all three of them in a line at the royal table, celebrating, and none of them serving the others or standing apart anymore. She would have been so happy, dimples everywhere, teasing Merlin for his blushes and for fumbling the formal dining utensils. And she would have looked at him, Arthur, with forgiveness. With pride.

“I’ll tell him,” Arthur choked. “I’ll tell him how proud you are. He’ll…” His voice failed him for a moment, and he struggled past the rasp and the clogged airway. “He’ll like that.” Arthur nodded and few times while he regained his composure, lips pressed tightly together to hold back any sound that might try to escape him. When he could draw a deep breath without it catching or going fluttery at the end, Arthur pushed himself away from the door and fixed his eyes on the small slip of light shining weakly along the floor, where the sun had crept through the windows of Guinevere’s chamber to greet him, too thin though for him to reach – to touch his feet where he stood before the barred entry. “Have a pleasant morning, Guinevere.” Then he nodded a few more times, more to reassure himself that he was fine and able to walk away, before he did just that. He didn’t look back; all that remained behind him was a sliver of light shining out from under the door of a tomb, a siren’s call to a life he could no longer live. He could not allow himself to wallow in that – to be tempted into looking ever back at all of the mistakes he could not set right, and the things he couldn’t change.

His next stop was the Steward’s office to update the ledgers accordingly, and then George found him in the corridor near the kitchens, where Arthur had somehow managed to get himself turned around in a dead end hallway offering nothing but an empty closet and a ladder down into a cold storage room. Arthur accepted a plate from him, and directions, and then sat on one of the benches rimming the training grounds to eat in the weak autumn sun. First, though, he gained George’s promise that food would be delivered to Merlin too. He would have liked to let the man rest, or clean if he preferred, because he certainly needed a break, but the council’s last session before Samhain was today. They needed to conclude outstanding business, and Arthur would need Merlin present to do that.

The sun sketched out a feeble light amongst the clouds, the crisp of autumn slow to give way to the new morning, dew frozen into a light frost on the grass, like the creep of condensed moisture spread like crystal in patterns over a window pane. Arthur watched a few lone birds peck at the ground where horses and knights’ boots had stirred it up into pocks and furrows. It was still in a way that only chill mornings could be, as if the world had stopped for a moment.

Arthur listened to the soft pat-pat of footsteps crunching across the grass toward him and smiled because the light trip and stumble could only belong to one person. He waited until Merlin came abreast of him and scooted to one side to make room on the bench. “Merlin.”

“Is there a reason George brought me breakfast and then made disapproving faces at me until I’d eaten more than I normally do in a day?” Merlin studied the open space on the bench and then carefully sat at an unreasonable distance.

“I’m trying to fatten you up,” Arthur replied. He offered Merlin the picked over remains from his own plate and then then grinned out one side of his mouth when Merlin merely narrowed his eyes at Arthur in suspicion. “Alright, fine. I was worried about you,” Arthur admitted. “You’re going to collapse eventually.”

Merlin blinked his gaze down and then away, clearly embarrassed. “I’m fine.”

“Are you?” Arthur asked, and for once, he could hear in his own voice that it wasn’t a provocative question; he just wanted to know.

“Yeah.” Merlin’s face smiled wider, but his eyes dimmed a bit. “She’ll never bear another child,” he commented offhand, turning his head to peer quietly into the dawn. “I think that’s why the gentler spells didn’t work. The ability to quicken the womb is a kind of life magic. That death must have been the price for her life.”

“What do you mean? What did the spell do?”

“It was a crude one,” Merlin admitted. “Basically, it cauterized the wound like a firebrand. It would have left scarring, too much for a child to grow there again.”

Arthur hummed and thought of the girl as he’d last seen her, sleeping in her mother’s arms. “At least she’s alive.”

Merlin peered sidelong at Arthur, his mouth curling in a tiny kind of smirk, the way it used to, years ago when he was still just a boy, playful and irreverent. Still young. “Yeah.”

It struck Arthur suddenly that Merlin wasn’t young anymore. Neither of them were, of course, but somehow, Arthur hadn’t expected age to show on Merlin the way it showed on other people. It did, though – perhaps more in the contrast of that glimpse of old youth, than in the lines that had crept into his face. Arthur felt his features soften, and saw it mirrored in puzzlement on Merlin’s. “I didn’t even know you could grow facial hair,” Arthur remarked, just to break the odd weight of the moment as it approached something that Arthur didn’t think he could confront just yet. “You should keep it – looks good on you.”

Merlin tilted his head, still watching Arthur’s face as if to parse out all of the things he wasn’t saying. “It itches.”

“I imagine that will pass in a few days.” Not that he would know; he had tried to grow a beard once, but it looked like mange, much to Merlin’s glee. He hadn’t attempted it again. “Anyway, might do you good to look like a grown man. People can’t take a spotty boy seriously.”

Merlin rolled his eyes and relaxed back onto the bench. A tension bled out of the air between them that Arthur only noticed after it had gone. “Prat. I was never spotty.”

Arthur hummed noncommittally, and when Merlin looked at him with a covert grin and narrowed eyes, Arthur bumped their shoulders together. “Promise me something, Merlin.”

“What, that I won’t forget your armor on the field or leave ash in your fireplace?”

“That you won’t lie to me anymore.”

The mirth building on Merlin’s face dissipated, sinking into his skin like a shipwreck.

“I mean it,” Arthur pressed, but he kept his posture open and non-accusing. “It’s important that I be able to trust you – that others know that I can trust you. Especially about the magic. Do you understand?”

Merlin tried to look away a few times, but his gaze seemed drawn to Arthur’s, and he couldn’t break away. “I don’t – ”

“I’m not judging you for hiding it.” Arthur twisted on the bench to face Merlin, and remained steady when it caused Merlin to lean away and draw back the hand he’d been resting between them. “But it has to stop now. Promise me, Merlin – from now on, only the truth, no matter how you think I’ll react, or if you think you’re protecting me. It has to stop.”

It took a while for Merlin to work himself up to an answer, and Arthur wondered what was going on behind the wide blue expanse of his eyes. He seemed to be struggling, and Arthur could at least appreciate that Merlin didn’t make the promise carelessly – that he treated Arthur’s demand with the gravity it deserved. Finally, he said, “I want to promise you that. I do, I swear.”

Arthur nodded, forcing back the indignation and suspicion that years of his father’s mad crusade had pounded into him. “What’s stopping you?”

“I don’t – Arthur, I’m…” Merlin clenched his hands together in his lap and took a few rapid breaths, as if each one were preparatory to a shout that never came. “I _want_ to.”

Arthur watched him squirm and fight with himself, eyes darting over the field and back to his hands, or Arthur’s boots, repeatedly. “Have you ever?” he asked. “Been completely honest about yourself? Your magic?”

Merlin shook his head without even thinking about it.

“Not even to your mother?”

“I didn’t want to frighten her,” Merlin whispered. “More than I already did. I don’t know if I can, Arthur. I don’t even think about it anymore.”

It put Arthur at ease somehow, to hear Merlin say that. “Then I’ll remind you. You will do your best never to lie or keep things from me again, and I will remind you when you need it.”

Merlin nodded, licked his lips, and then looked up at Arthur with shame and gratitude both. “I can promise that.”

“Good. Then it’s a deal.” Arthur relaxed back again and peered out across the field. “George is getting you a more suitable wardrobe, by the way.”

“What? Why?” Merlin squawked. “I have clothes – there’s nothing wrong with my clothes. You can’t just – ”

Arthur quirked an eyebrow at him. “I won’t have you traipsing about in rags any longer, Merlin. It makes me look bad.”

“How does what I’m wearing make you look bad? You’re not wearing it.” Merlin huffed at him and flapped a hand around. “We’ve discussed this. I’ve had these for years – they’re fine.”

“Silk is fine. Those are just…” Arthur made a face and settled on, “…sad. And I can’t have my court physician looking like a pauper.”

“I do _not_ look like – ”

Arthur actually had to look at Merlin to be sure he hadn’t vanished in a magical puff of smoke, he went so suddenly dead quiet. “Yes, you do. It’s embarrassing. To me.”

Merlin made fish-mouth faces at him for a moment, and then sputtered, “You’re making me court physician?”

Arthur started to smile.

“Why would you do that?”

The smile withered. “Because you deserve it?” As if it weren’t obvious?

“I’m not ready for that. I don’t know half the things that Gaius did – ”

“Merlin, I’m pretty sure that the only person who thinks you’re not ready for this is you.”

“There are plenty of people who still think I’m an idiot.”

Arthur shrugged. “Well, you are that. But you’re also a physician in your own right, and I’ve seen what you can do. I wouldn’t trust my health to anyone else.”

“But who will mend your armor and clean your socks, draw your bath, test your food – ”

“I told you to stop testing my food! It could be _poisoned_ , Merlin!”

Merlin blinked and then scoffed at him. “You are _un_ believable. Do you really expect me to make some ten year old child eat food that might be poisoned, just so that I don’t have to?”

Arthur started to yell at him that yes, that was the job of food testers, but when he put it that way, it would make Arthur sound like a complete arse to say yes. So he merely punched Merlin in the shoulder instead and took a moment to sulk.

“Ow,” Merlin told him, dry as the desert in the Perilous Lands. He also pointedly did not rub at the offended appendage.

“Shut up, Merlin.”

They sat in ambiguous silence for a while, and Arthur listened to the birdsong fade behind the noise of the citadel coming awake. “You’ll make a fine court physician. And you have magic, Merlin. Imagine what you could do with it.”

Merlin grimaced down at his lap where his hands worried at the ends of his knotted belt. “I don’t think raining fire is any good against sweating sickness.”

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

“What do you mean, then?” Merlin demanded. “I’m not a healer; today wasn’t how it usually goes. Every wound you received – I couldn’t do anything about them.”

“Maybe it was a fluke,” Arthur allowed. “Or perhaps you just need practice.”

“Practice,” Merlin scoffed. The bitterness fell in a surprising little heap between them, drawing Arthur’s startled gaze. “I can’t practice magic, Arthur. In case it slipped your notice, the king forbids it.”

Arthur grimaced and searched the low ceiling of cloud cover for something to say that wouldn’t be trite or simply nonsensical. “Maybe that should change.” When Merlin didn’t reply right away, Arthur looked over to find him avoiding the sight of Arthur’s profile beside him. “You don’t agree?”

Merlin started to say something a few times, but it didn’t come as easily as he apparently meant. Finally, he let out a breath, and the words tumbled out on the tail end of it, faint and ill-formed. “I want that more than anything.”

Arthur studied the silhouette of him backlit by the dawn, a thin and wavering line of a man bent by the light around him. He thought back to the old coot in the charcoal hut, and wondered if perhaps Dragoon were more the real Merlin after all than this uncertain and weary figure before him. _All I have ever wanted is that people like me can live in peace. That those who practice magic are accepted, rather than hunted. That is all I ask._ But also, _You are asking me to save the life of a man that would have me executed._ Didn’t that apply, back then at least, to Arthur just as much as Uther? _There can be no place for magic in Camelot._ Was that truly an endorsement of the laws, of the ban, as Arthur had originally thought? Or was it actually just an observation? “Why are you here, Merlin? Why Camelot?”

Merlin shook his head slowly, tongue wetting his lips as he lifted his head to regard the cold autumn light. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“That’s not true. You could have gone anywhere, someplace magic isn’t outlawed. You could have stayed in your own kingdom.”

“Do you know what happens to sorcerers in kingdoms where magic isn’t outlawed?” Merlin swiveled his head only to peer at him from hooded eyes. “We’re not people there either; we’re weapons that Camelot has no defense for. I’d have been made a slave for Cenred’s wars if anyone ever found out. Execution is a mercy compared to that.”

Arthur shook his head and diverted his gaze, because no. He hadn’t known that. He hadn’t considered it at all.

“And at least here, I know that if I am forced to use my magic, it’s for the benefit of a good king.”

Arthur scoffed. “Even my father?”

Merlin dropped his gaze and bit his lip for a moment. “Better than Cenred. Your father may not have cared for the wellbeing of people with magic, but at least he cared for the rest.”

Arthur blinked a few times and then turned away, because the logic of that alone was a tragedy. He didn’t think that in Merlin’s shoes, he’d have been so forgiving, but he hadn’t grown up in deprivation. He’d never even seen that until Merlin took him to Ealdor and showed him the way most people lived. “You know, even before I knew what you were, I could tell that someone was using magic to protect us. There’s only so many monsters I can kill while unconscious before it starts looking suspicious.”

Merlin blinked a few times and his gaze flickered around into the middle distance as if the answer might be there. Then he tried to grin and make light of it. “Not so sure of your prowess after all?”

Arthur crossed his arms over his chest and wondered what Merlin saw when he looked off into the faraway like that. “I figured saying something would only send my father on a witch hunt.” Though Uther conducted one anyway, quite literally.

Before Arthur could say anything more, Merlin voiced that exact thought. “He did that anyway.”

Arthur blinked a few times, and noticed that Merlin had brought a basket along with him only because he was now lifting out one of Arthur’s thick winter tunics. “I thought I told you to get rid of that; it’s got a hole the size of my arm from Percival and his damn singlestick.”

“Waste not, want not,” Merlin quipped. “You can still wear it under your armor; nobody will see the stitching.” He proceeded to grin, too many teeth in too pale a face, and fished out a bone needle and thread from the detritus at the bottom of the basket as well.

Arthur frowned at Merlin struggling to thread the needle with his too-long, fumbly fingers, like he had too many knuckles or something. “Could you use magic to do that?”

To Merlin’s credit, Arthur was likely the only one would have noticed the way he stiffened and missed a beat in his threading. “Nah. Stitching comes out sloppy.”

“Your stitching comes out sloppy anyway.”

Merlin spared him a nasty look and then returned to his needle fumbling with a level of concentration that would have been comical from anyone else. “I’m not a seamstress,” he pointed out, and then flinched.

They were both thinking of Guinevere, Arthur thought with a pang. He pushed it aside; today should be about the living. “Sometimes, I wish you’d told me about the magic. I wonder how many things might have turned out differently.”

As if it meant nothing to him, Merlin smiled gently to himself and said, “You’d have chopped my head off, for one.” He finally got the thread through the eye and began fiddling with the tunic.

“I don’t know what I’d have done,” Arthur replied, but they both knew it was something of a lie. Running him through would have been more likely, though. And he would have regretted it.

Merlin shrugged, reaching through sleeves to turn the garment inside out and expose the inner seams. “You have enough to worry about without me complicating things. Besides.” He tugged the tunic into a smooth line and set a stitch to hold things where he wanted them. “You obviously didn’t want to hear it.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Merlin chuffed, but it wasn’t a merry sound. “That you have known for…a while, apparently, and you haven’t done anything.” He faced the tunic as he spoke, poking the needle with what seemed to Arthur to be unnecessary drama. “You didn’t arrest me, or pardon me, or even question me. You just ignored it entirely. You didn’t want to deal with it.”

“That’s hindsight.” Arthur stood and paced around the bench, agitated.

“Still valid.”

Arthur scowled at the dew encrusted field. “Surely you thought about it.”

“You never would have chosen me over your father, and you would have hated yourself for it. I didn’t want to put you in that position.”

Arthur shook his head, tried to think of some way to continue this conversation logically, and then merely glared at Merlin. “No. You came here, to Camelot – the last place your kind is wanted. Where you are _hunted_. And you _stayed_. That wasn’t for me. Living the way you have, like half of a man, that isn’t something you do for someone else’s sake.” He turned away.

Merlin’s frown was deafening where it roared at Arthur’s back. “Why not?”

“Because no one is that good!” He spun around to find Merlin blinking at him, needle buried into the woolen tunic and mostly forgotten. “Not even you.”

He expected to receive back as much anger as he hurled forth. It should have been anger that lit Merlin’s face in response. Or maybe defensiveness, and a litany of excuses or justifications. Instead, Merlin’s nostrils flared and he clenched his jaw in something less identifiable. “No. No, you don’t get to demand – ”

“I’m the bloody king, Merlin. I can demand whatever – ”

“I had no choice! What else am I supposed to do, Arthur – what else am I even _good_ for?! Do you think I _wanted_ this? I have no life outside of you. How is that for my benefit? I get nothing from this!”

“I didn’t ask that of you.”

“How did you not?” Merlin twitched his face away and then down to worry at the frayed threads of Arthur’s ripped tunic. “It’s been years, hasn’t it? Since you found out? You know what I’ve been doing, you turned a blind eye so that I could keep doing it. I’m a rubbish servant and you know it. The only thing I’m good for that George isn’t is magic, and Camelot has no other weapon against that.”

Arthur twitched because he hadn’t thought that at all. And he certainly didn’t consider Merlin to be a _weapon_ …did he? It occurred to Arthur that they were having two entirely different arguments here, and he had no idea what Merlin’s was about. “You never had to defend us – no one was forcing you.”

“Do you really think I could have done _nothing_ and lived with myself? I couldn’t even bear to let Tom die, and he was only one person. There are thousands here now. And hundreds more in the countryside – there’s no way not to hear it when they’re all screaming.”

“I know,” Arthur snapped, because he did know. “But you didn’t have to come _here_ in the first place. You didn’t have to be _my_ servant, _my_ protector! You risked death every day just for existing, and you _didn’t have to_!”

“I had nowhere else to go,” Merlin said, and finally, there was rage, but it wasn’t at Arthur, and it wasn't loud. It was quiet, and it cut. “I had no skills, no prospects, there wasn’t a village in fifty miles would have taken me in, I was useless. I had to come here – I couldn’t stay in Ealdor, they were starting to notice, and what Gaius needed help with, at least that much I knew how to do.”

“But surely,” Arthur pressed, like a dog at a foxhole, “surely this isn’t the life you wanted.”

“The life I _wanted_?” Merlin’s breath kicked up as if he were running, or perhaps getting ready to throw a punch. “No one ever asked me what I wanted. It was all just go here Merlin, and do this Merlin – ” He flung his hands out as he said this, as if to bare his breast to a sword. “Kill this person, and let that one die, and it doesn’t matter who’s innocent or not, or who you betray, or what you think, or if it rips your heart out, because doing the right thing could have _unintended consequences_ and you’ll just screw up the whole bloody world if you don’t shut up and do as you’re told!”

Arthur shook his head and took a step back, uncomfortably aware of the feeling that the air was vibrating. All Arthur could do was repeat, “I didn’t ask that of you.”

Merlin shuddered to stillness and stared at him as if Arthur had said something horrible to him. “Everything I am is for you. Everything I have done has been for you. You keep demanding some other explanation, when there isn’t one. I haven’t had a chance to make another reason, to  _want_ something else – I have nothing _but_ you.”

Arthur had no idea what that meant – he didn’t have a frame of reference for such a thing. He thought about what Gaius had told him about prophecy and demands. He wanted to say something to differentiate himself from druids and goddesses and dragons, but he wasn’t sure that he could, not honestly. “What do you expect me to say? Thank you?” It came out more confrontational than he intended.

Thankfully, Merlin didn’t quite rise to the bait. He did sort of waver though, his frame bending oddly as if he meant to slide sideways and disappear into the boundary wall. “Never that,” he breathed.

Arthur hazarded a few steps forward, and Merlin simply watched him come. “I know you’ve saved my life before, more times than I know. I haven’t exactly been grateful, I’ll admit.”

Merlin shook his head and turned his face away, as if Arthur had missed the whole point.

“What _do_ you want?” Arthur finally asked. “As your life. What do you want from it?”

Merlin opened his mouth to reply, but only a scoff came out, disbelieving and tragic. “How should I know? I can’t have something else.”

“Why? Is it all of this – this destiny nonsense? What does any of it matter?”

Merlin shook his head a few more times and looked off to the side of the field, eyes unfocused. “I should leave you to your practice, sire.” He straightened and made to gather up the now mangled sewing.

Arthur grabbed him by the upper arm and forced him back. It took more strength than he had expected; Merlin resisted the attempt to make him stay in the conversation. “No. You’re not leaving until this is done.”

Merlin shoved at Arthur’s chest, but Arthur wouldn’t budge. “This _is_ done,” he said lowly. Had he been anyone else, the look on his face might have raised the hairs on Arthur’s neck. As it was, he felt something ethereal in the still morning shatter, and realized that it was the threat of magic rising out of the spaces between the air itself.

“No.” Arthur probably should have been more afraid than he actually was. Merlin was… He was powerful. And not entirely in control lately, but Arthur trusted him not to hurt him. He had to trust that much. “Explain it to me, Merlin. I want to understand.”

“No, you don’t,” Merlin scoffed.

“Yes,” Arthur countered, leaning over him where he still sat. “I do.” He could smell mildew and the chill wet of a cavern. “Do you think you’re alone in this, in what you’ve been doing?” Arthur could tell from the way Merlin tried to avert his gaze that yes, he did. “Merlin this is not your burden – it never was, and you never should have had to bear it. The responsibility for the good of this kingdom is mine,” Arthur continued. “ _Listen_ to me.” He shook Merlin hard enough to clack his teeth together and make him grunt in protest. “It’s on me. Do you understand? I’m the king. I alone am responsible. You will not pay the price for my ignorance any longer.”

It was ugly, the look on Merlin’s face. Arthur had no idea what he was fighting, exactly, only that it wasn’t necessarily Arthur himself. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew.”

“Yes, I would.” Arthur had managed to shove Merlin back into the bench, and he crouched between Merlin’s knees now, forcing him to shrink back to maintain propriety, because he knew that it would keep Merlin in place far more effectively than force. “We have all done awful things in defense of this kingdom, things we maybe shouldn’t have. Things that were wrong. We have _all_ betrayed someone. And we all have to live with that.”

Merlin went alarmingly rigid and pale like fresh linen; his eyes appeared wide in spite of the whites not showing. It was the shadow of that boy, fifteen summers fresh, who walked into a shining, towered city to start his new life and witnessed an execution instead. The previously still morning stirred into a firm breeze and Arthur watched Merlin’s fingers clamp down hard on the edge of the bench he was sat upon, as if to keep himself in check. A few stray autumn leaves fluttered past and then tumbled to a standstill as the acrid static faded again. “I don’t want to kill people. But I have to. To protect you. It’s what I’m for.”

Arthur wondered, with a sudden and terrible clarity, if that was why Hunith sent him here in the first place – not to try and give him a better prospect in life, but because she was afraid that he was dangerous. And he _was_ dangerous. From what little Arthur had seen of Merlin’s magic, it was elemental and strong – even volatile at times. And Merlin had hinted that staying in Ealdor would have gone badly for him. Arthur had never fully understood why – not in depth. It was a horrible thought, because no one could doubt Hunith’s love for her son, but why send him to the one place where sorcerers were summarily executed, if not to ensure that should he turn out to be unsafe – incapable of controlling his magic, unable to learn restraint – that he would be surrounded by people who would stop him? Gaius hadn’t dealt with magic in decades; he could have offered little in the way of training. But he _was_ a loyal subject of Uther, and a man who had betrayed countless others of magic. Gaius had come to love Merlin like a son, but that had grown with time. In the beginning, Arthur did not think that Gaius would have hesitated to turn him in, had he been a threat to anyone.

He couldn’t think of that now; it was immaterial, and Gaius was dead. They would never know for certain now. Arthur’s hand wandered from Merlin’s bicep to the back of his neck, squeezing and shaking to make him pay attention. “I have allowed you to suffer for my sake. I will admit that,” Arthur told him, more winded than the simple struggle accounted for. The picture in his mind would not leave him, of Merlin being put down like a rabid dog for something he couldn’t control. He kept his voice even in spite of it. Calm. “I have turned a blind eye and let you do all of the things I couldn’t, or wouldn’t do. Agravaine. Morg…” Arthur’s voice caught on a thickness in his throat; he swallowed and forced himself to say instead, “My sister. I refused to see what was in front of me – I failed to adequately protect my kingdom from them. I was weak, and I couldn’t face the thought of another betrayal, or of killing someone I had once loved, so you did it for me, and I let you. I _know_ , Merlin. Maybe not everything, but enough, and for long enough. I let you be the monster, and I refused to admit that I did it so that if I ever had to blame someone for it, I could blame you. It was cowardly, Merlin.” His voice shook with the admission, but he owed Merlin that much. “I’m a coward. And I’m sorry.”

Merlin bit his lip and breathed wetly through his nose for a moment, staring at Arthur as if he couldn’t comprehend what he’d said. “But I have magic. You hate magic.”

Arthur swallowed, because yes, he did, and however beautiful it had been to see life unfurl again in Elise’s dying body, one miracle couldn’t change that. His experience, more than his father’s ravings, had taught him that magic was dangerous. That it hurt and used and killed. But experience was showing him the other side of magic too; he was looking at it. It was terrifying and blindly loyal, and Arthur knew that no one should have ever entrusted it to him because he _had_ misused it. He had wielded Merlin like a weapon, and neither of them had even noticed. “I can no longer afford that luxury.”

His voice thick with all of things he appeared to be choking back, Merlin said, “I killed your father.”

Arthur shook his head, not quite a negation – it was too subtle a motion for that. “No, you didn’t. I will never believe that. Odin killed my father. Not you. That assassin was meant for me, for a wrong that I did to him. If anyone is to blame for my father’s murder, then it is me. Not you.”

Merlin mumbled the word _no_ to himself a few times, and then shook his head violently. “But it was _my_ magic that killed him. _I_ struck the death blow.”

“ _Stop_ it.” Arthur breathed harsh through his nose for a moment and eyed Merlin with what he suspected came unfortunately close to disgust. “I’ll hear no more of this.”

Merlin’s voice stopped him as he started to rise and move away to give him space. “You said you wanted to know. I’m telling you – ”

“That’s not what you’re doing!” Arthur spun back, but kept his shoulder pointed at Merlin in a defensive stance, his hands spread open at his sides. “What have you done that you think is so awful?”

“I saved her.” Merlin made a visible effort to collect his wits and calm his breathing, remaining sprawled in false languor on the bench as if to make a meek target of himself on purpose. It was terrifying to watch, this chilly calm. However visibly his emotions roiled, they remained trapped beneath the surface, behind the mask of the idiot that he wore every day. “I made her fall down the stairs, but then I couldn’t… I knew what she’d do. I saw it in the crystal, and everyone told me to let her die, but I couldn’t do it.”

Arthur shook his head, at a loss and frustrated because of it. “What are you talking about?”

“Morgana.” Merlin forced himself to swallow, though it appeared that something tried to come back up. “I could have stopped her.”

This wasn’t the least bit constructive anymore, and Arthur fought to maintain his own composure. “Enough of this. I won’t listen to this.”

“I healed her,” Merlin persisted. Faint though it was, his voice was neither hesitant nor weak. Merlin rotated a shoulder and added, “With magic,” as if it even needed to be said.

“Stop being stupid. Do you seriously expect me to hate you because you’re _not_ a murderer?”

“ _How many people are dead now because of what I did?_ ” Merlin shouted. “Lancelot, your father…? How many do you think the dorocha killed, how many knights died defending Camelot from her attacks? How many druids did Morgana torture? Kill? Coerce? How many villagers died by her army, how many ancient orders did she wipe out for refusing to side with her?” He choked himself silent for a moment. “Gwen.”

Arthur went numb for a heartbeat; he could feel it like sick heat as it billowed through his body. “I told you, you are not responsible for what happened to Guinevere.”

Merlin shook his head. “You’re wrong.” The words sounded as if he’d torn them from his own throat. “I knew what Morgana was, and I still saved her. Everything she did after that was my fault. I let her live. And I had so many chances to fix that, Arthur. So many, but I didn’t – I didn’t want to have to kill her.”

“Stop!” Arthur lunged into his space and felt a sick triumph at the way Merlin scrambled back against the bench. “You didn’t force Morgana to do anything – she chose her path herself.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“How _what_ works?” Arthur demanded. He was breathing heavily, his heart racing too fast. He may have also been shouting. “I swear to god, Merlin, if this is another of your _idiotic_ destiny things, I will – ” Of course, he wouldn’t do much of anything, and he certainly wouldn’t hit him. “Enough! You are never to bring this up again, do you understand me?” He shook Merlin for emphasis, only then realizing that he’d grabbed him by the shoulders and was holding him pinned to the bench like a moth.

Merlin looked like he wanted to argue, but he swallowed it back and dropped his gaze, his mouth screwed up as if his tongue tasted unpleasant. “Yes, sire.”

Arthur shoved him pointlessly harder into the bench and then flung himself in the opposite direction to pace an angry circle around it. He came to rest with one hand gripping the bench back, staring unseeing at the field as his heart finally slowed its rhythm. His knuckles pressed into the knob of Merlin’s shoulder and in his periphery, he could see the angry cant of Merlin’s body, still huddled where Arthur had put him. Merlin’s fury had always been a silent thing. Most of Merlin, for that matter – the true part, the uncensored part – was made up of silent things.

Arthur looked down and swallowed. “When I first realized what you were, I almost killed you. I walked away from my vigil over my father’s body intending to call the guard to arrest you for regicide. But you weren’t running – you weren’t even going about your own business. You were just sitting there, waiting for me.” He could feel Merlin twitch against the back of his fingers and twist to look up at him, but Arthur kept his eyes down where his boots met the gravel. “Then I thought about keeping you close to see what you’d do. To use it to our advantage. Except, there wasn’t anything. You just kept washing my socks and trying to die for me.” He looked down at Merlin, at the crown of his head, and the faint shine of a scar at his hairline, trying desperately to make him understand that such waste would not be tolerated anymore.

Merlin sucked on his lips and looked away to avoid the need to respond to any of that.

“Is that when you found out?”

“You never change your boots, Dragoon,” Arthur replied gently. He took a breath of the sort one took before diving into a lake, and strolled back around the bench. “They were dangling right there in my hands when you kicked me like a plow horse.”

Merlin appeared disgusted with himself for a moment.

Arthur sank back down to sit beside Merlin just a little too close. “Do you remember when Morgana was crowned queen?”

Merlin looked up, his eyes wide and liquid. “Of course I do.”

“You didn’t side with her. You didn’t spy for her, or give me up to her. You wouldn’t even let me make a fool of myself and be captured all on my own. And when you had the chance, you attacked her. I know it was you, Merlin. I don’t know how, but you stopped her army. And it wasn’t her first army, was it?”

Merlin choked over an aborted swallow and averted his face.

“The Knights of Medhir – that was you. You stopped them too.”

Thick with something unnamed, Merlin protested, “Arthur – ”

“And the undead army that Cenred and Morgause rose from within our own walls.” Arthur spoke right over him. “You almost told me then, didn’t you. In the throne room, just before my father announced Morgana as the day’s savior. That was _your_ work she took credit for.”

Merlin rocked a bit and then stopped himself shaking his head in the negative because he had just made Arthur a promise. Arthur appreciated the effort it must have taken to nod instead, and confirm that yes, he was the unsung hero that day. It worried Arthur, though, how Merlin shook for the briefest moment afterwards. What was it like, he wondered, to hold your secrets so close, bury them so deep, that accepting credit for your good deeds could instill such terror? Like being flayed to remove the false skin of your body, only to find the insides laid bare after all? Arthur wondered how much of Merlin might be left once he stripped away the artifice and the mask, and all of the lies within which he had sequestered himself just to stay alive.

“When I realized that she was working against us, it was clear that someone else had to be working against her. She didn’t destroy her own army, and the only other person in the catacombs with her on that day was you. I didn’t exactly connect it to magic at the time, but I knew then that you were more than you let on.” Arthur made an apologetic sound. “That you had secrets.”

Merlin’s lungs seized and he had to visibly force himself to breathe again.

“You aren’t a fighter, Merlin – you can barely hold a sword without stabbing yourself. It wasn’t blade that brought them to heal; it was a more powerful magic than theirs. It took me an embarrassingly long time to put all of it together.”

“It was mostly just dumb luck,” Merlin countered, but his voice juddered and rocked like a fishing boat riding a storm at sea.

Arthur grinned, baring his teeth just a bit because he could actually picture that – Merlin fumbling his way into defeating two powerful sorceresses and then tripping over the rubble on his way out. “And Sigan? No one ever asked how his life force left Cedric and ended up back in the crystal – the crystal that you were holding when it was over. It would have taken magic. You fought the most powerful sorcerer Camelot has ever known, and you won. Tell me, Merlin. Is that how it went?”

Merlin clutched at himself, arms wrapped tight over his soft underbelly, and nodded. “I had help,” he admitted. “I didn’t know the spell on my own; it’s lost magic.” He couldn’t look at Arthur, though, while he spoke.

“It was still you that cast it.” That was probably enough, for now. Arthur didn’t want to be cruel, and it seemed cruel just then to force Merlin to acknowledge his own deeds. Merlin could have been a knight, to judge by his deeds alone. For a moment, Arthur fancied that he saw a bit of Lancelot in Merlin, but after a moment’s thought, he decided that it was probably rather the opposite. Lancelot had been good and noble – ridiculously so – but until the crisis of the torn veil, he had not made the calculated, knowing decision to give himself up for the good of others, not the way that Merlin had repeatedly. Merlin’s nobility wasn’t _for_ anything. It wasn’t to prove himself, or to win accolades, or to obtain a title or make up for things lost, or even to be thanked at all. It just _was_. Selfless without recognition or reward – a faceless knight errant, content with obscurity. Which begged Arthur to ask one last question, because he had to know. “The questing beast.”

Merlin stilled himself and took several deep breaths, humming with each exhale the way a child might sooth itself in the dark.

“What did you do? No one would speak of it to me after I recovered, but I know I was dying. What did you do?”

“I – ” Merlin gathered himself again, and again started, “I – ” The force of cutting off his own words looked for a moment like the heave before some men vomited from nerves before a battle.

Arthur swallowed and glanced out at the deceptive peace of the field – at the squires far away down the pitch, setting up targets and dragging out racks of practice weapons and gear. Then he twisted on the bench and faced Merlin straight on. “I have read that the bite of the questing beast requires magic to heal – life magic. My father insisted otherwise at the time, but the fact of it is that someone had to trade their life for mine. I know you went to the isle, more than once, and I believe that you meant to do it – give your life in trade for mine. Which I don’t approve of, by the way, but we can deal with your apparent death wish later. Something happened – something went wrong and that sorceress never bothered us again.”

“Nimueh.” Merlin nodded a few times in confirmation. “She’s dead.”

Arthur peered at him without giving away his own thoughts. “You have a habit of killing high priestesses of the old religion.”

Merlin retorted, “They have a habit of trying to kill you. And it paid the debt – _her_ debt. She sent the questing beast in the first place – it’s her fault there was any life debt at all.”

“Fair enough.” Arthur tilted his head. “Life magic is supposed to be hard to control. The books I’ve read say that only the most powerful sorcerers can wield it – that it takes time and skill to learn, and that most still fail. But you don’t seem practiced – none of your magic does. It’s a bit…” Arthur rolled his hand in the air is if to gather the right word back to himself. “…untempered." A dull, misshapen sword. It doesn’t cut clean, but it still hacks its way through.

“Elemental,” Merlin replied, an echo of Arthur’s own earlier assumptions. “It’s earth magic; I don’t know what else to call it. I never really studied – there wasn’t anything _to_ study. I have a basic spell book that Gaius gave me, but I haven’t used much of it. Some of it, I can’t, and some of it…” He made a nonspecific gesture. “Some of it, I probably shouldn’t.”

Arthur nodded and maintained his bland exterior. “How powerful are you, then? If you can control the balance of life and death without knowing how you do it – if you can cast without words the way I think I’ve seen – what else can you do?”

Merlin shook his head, seemingly as disturbed on the outside by the question as Arthur was on the inside, asking it. “I don’t know,” he breathed. “I never tried to find out.”

“I see.” He didn’t, though. After a moment’s thought, Arthur reached over to hook a finger in Merlin’s shirt collar. He ignored the violent flinch and the even more violent immobility that stole over Merlin at the motion. Arthur peeled the tunic to one side and then tugged it down to reveal the starburst scar of burnt skin where it spread puckered and old just below Merlin’s heart. He traced a single finger over the ridge lines at the edge. “You are good for more than just killing. If you’ve never had an opportunity to see that before, then that’s on me for never giving you the chance.”

Merlin opened his mouth and then just sort of closed it again like a fish gulping air. The dark bristles of hair and beard on his face, across his upper lip, made the gesture softer somehow, and set his skin paler. He raised his eyes toward the open field, but they weren’t focused anything. Arthur took note of how they swam with sunlight over the blue iris.

“There’s also a scar on your back from a serkhet sting, which should have killed you. And another on the back of your neck that looks like someone cut into it more than once.”

Merlin swallowed again and nodded, his fingers clenching over his sides as he continued to hug himself into stillness.

Arthur let go of his tunic and reached back to tug the fabric back down over knobby spine and up over the stark cups of collar bones, covering the old marks along with the faded yellow bruising from Arthur’s fingers, and the darker, fresher injuries from the night Gaius died. “I want you tell me how you got all of them. Not now, but someday.” He tried not to sound disappointed, but he was, and he didn’t think he managed to conceal it very well. The long wait to start a conversation about these things was as much his own fault as Merlin’s, and as for Merlin’s anxiety about putting any of it into words, Arthur wasn’t sure who to blame for that. He wondered if Merlin had been like this with Gaius too, or if it were something about Arthur himself that made it so difficult.

Merlin’s hand crept up to crimp the tunic closed over his throat, protecting himself from Arthur’s scrutiny. His voice scratchy and hoarse, he replied, “Yes, sire.”

It was not in any way the response that Arthur had been hoping for, but it would have to be enough. He scooted back to the other end of the bench in the hopes that Merlin might unclench if given some space.

Out of nowhere, Merlin offered, “I’ve done things I’m not proud of. A lot of things, actually.”

Arthur glanced sidelong at him and then away again when Merlin continued staring straight ahead from beneath the hair that had grown too long and fallen over his brow, eyes shadowed. “So have I. We all have regrets, Merlin.”

Merlin shook his head. “It’s more than that.”

For a long while, Arthur didn’t say anything. A few knights arrived on the field and began warming up, running through solo formations with their swords. Arthur eyed their footwork mostly out of habit. “Do you ever feel like…everything went wrong somewhere?”

Merlin blinked himself from his thoughts and turned to look at Arthur. He remained curled around himself like a living cloak, a vertical fold of arms up around his own body, holding it closed. His fingers worried at the collar of his tunic where Arthur had bared him a moment ago.

“As if we’re living the wrong lives, or living this one…” Arthur groped for the right word, his fingers actually grappling with the air. “…wrong. Like we’re not the right people, exactly.”

A few birds scattered in a chirping flurry past their bench, and Merlin frowned hard at him. “Are you alright?”

Arthur gave an exasperated sigh and shook his head at his own feet. “Never mind.”

“No, it’s just – ” Merlin cut himself off, but his face brightened with interest. “You don’t usually hold court with destiny.”

“No,” Arthur agreed sourly. “But I get this feeling sometimes like this isn’t how things were supposed to be.” He peered at Merlin again. “Didn’t you say once that my reign is supposed to be a golden age?”

Merin smirked a bit. “No, I said that you were destined to be Albion’s greatest king.”

“I’m not Albion’s king at all,” Arthur pointed out. He watched the playfulness fade from Merlin’s face. “And I’m certainly not a great king of Camelot.”

Merlin tipped his head and regarded Arthur sideways. “Are you fishing for compliments, or am I actually supposed to answer that?”

“Are you actually going to sit there, a sorcerer, and try to convince me that I’m any better than my father?”

Tellingly, Merlin looked away to hide his expression.

“The Once and Future King,” Arthur mused out loud, aware of Merlin’s wince. “Do you know, when I was a boy, I tried to convince my father that I was supposed to be living with Sir Ector.”

Merlin’s face twitched back in his direction, and he seemed to be trying to figure out if that were a joke or not.

Arthur grinned, however forced, to let him know it was alright to laugh. “I insisted that I should be mucking Ector’s stables and fetching lances for Sir Kay.”

After a moment’s thought, perhaps to picture that, Merlin laughed. It peeled out bright and unexpected, and Arthur couldn’t help his answering chuckle when Merlin seemed startled at his own happiness. “You? A stable boy?”

“I even followed him back to his lands once. Father sent two dozen knights out after me, convinced I’d been kidnapped by sorcerers or handed off to the Druids – he was livid when they found me covered in manure and sleeping in a hay loft in Ector’s stable. No one even recognized me, and Sir Kay swore up and down that he thought I’d been there since I could toddle.”

Merlin’s face split with his laughter, his teeth shining for a moment before he bit down on his lip, still smiling. “I told my mum once that I was supposed to be a hermit in a cave with lots of fog. She had to send half the town after me once; they thought I’d been attacked by wild animals or something.”

Arthur scoffed. “You wouldn’t last a day as a hermit, no one’s ear to talk off. You can’t even catch your own food without getting all weepy.”

“Oh, you’re one to talk, mister can’t sleep without his extra fluffy bedroll.”

“I’m the king; I shouldn’t have to sleep rough.”

“Prat.”

“Clotpole.”

"Still my word." Merlin made a happy little sound as he contemplated this new information. “You know how I told you I had a vague memory of my father?”

Arthur’s face softened. “Yeah, I remember.”

“In my mind, growing up, he was a Roman. Or he dressed like one, anyway. Some war leader or something. Tall. I know it wasn’t real – my father left before my mum even knew she was pregnant. I couldn’t have seen him before, and I know better now, of course. He wasn’t a Roman, or anything like that. But it’s still there, you know? I can picture him and everything, covered in light. I wanted to be like him. When I met my real father…” The smile faded and a sort of melancholy took its place. “I was disappointed. It felt like I’d been cheated.” He pursed his lips and picked as his fingernails. “It passed, of course. He was…noble. In a way. I think.” He shrugged and raised his face toward the lowly rising sun. “I didn’t get a chance to find out for sure.”

Arthur stared unseeing at the ground and rubbed his thumb into his opposite palm. “My father’s brother was a Roman soldier, more or less.”

“I didn’t know he had any siblings.”

“They grew up in Brittany with the legions there, after Vortigern betrayed their father and usurped him.” Arthur raised his eyes to the field where runners were setting up archery targets, his face brooding. “They didn't get on very well. He was killed - my uncle. Poisoned by a man posing as a physician in his war camp.”

“I’m sorry,” Merlin offered, though it was clear he wasn’t sure why the sympathy was warranted, if Arthur never knew him. “Does that mean you have cousins in Brittany or something?”

“I might,” Arthur replied. He looked down and let out a long breath. “I had one here, once. Nobody talked about him. The staff were forbidden from mentioning certain things to me, and he was apparently one of them.”

Merlin snorted. “Why? What did he do?”

“As far as I can tell, his only crime was being my uncle's bastard son, and a sorcerer.”

Merlin was silent beside him for a long time, and then he took care when he asked, “What happened to him?”

“What do you think happened? My father had him burned at the stake,” Arthur said.

“He was Uther’s nephew,” Merlin said in disbelief.

Arthur nodded. “But he was a sorcerer too. And in point of fact, his claim to the throne may have superseded my father’s, whatever anyone else thinks.”

“He challenged Uther’s claim?”

Arthur laughed, a mean little sound. “No, actually. As far as I’ve been told, he wanted nothing to do with it. Geoffrey said he called me the Once and Future King too. He wanted me to inherit, he just didn’t think much of my father.”

They both sat in silence for a moment, digesting this new information where it fell between them, and then Merlin said, “Mum named me for her mum’s half-brother.”

Arthur didn’t look at him, but he felt his blood run cold in his veins, because it abruptly occurred to him that he should have known - should have figured this out before now. All this time, he had been trying desperately to parse out Merlin’s birthright, and here Arthur was, bellowing out the answer practically every time he hollered for his manservant, ignorant. _There’s something about you, Merlin._

“Said he was special, like me, but she also said he wasn’t quite right in the head once. I’m pretty sure he died in the purge, but mum doesn’t talk about him. She doesn’t like thinking about her family, I think. Or what happened to them. I don’t even know her parents’ names. Don’t think either of them had magic, though. And mum definitely doesn’t.”

Arthur felt unmoored, as if the earth were dropping out from underneath him. Surely, it could not be this easy. Or this…this terrible? “Maybe she was trying to protect you.” Merlin came from Essetir; whatever Geoffrey said, his name could be a common one in those lands. And many families were complicated.

Merlin shrugged. “From what? I knew I was magic, and what happens to people like me if we’re caught. It wasn’t like she could protect me from that.”

Arthur swallowed to dislodge a blockage in his throat, and fiddled with his fingernails. He could not make this assumption. Not without proof, certainly not without _something_ other than these coincidences and a similarity of names. But he believed it. It felt like the truth. “I think my father ruined something. And that’s why all of this – ” He flapped his hand about in disgust as if to encompass the whole of the world, or maybe just their world. “ – is…is like it is now.” Like looking at his life solely via its reflection in the shining curve of a well-polished plackart – distorted and tunneled. “Because this is certainly not a golden age, and I’m pretty sure there’s nothing I can do now to make it one. Too many – too much – has died already. There is no Albion left to unite.”

“I don’t believe that’s true.”

In spite of himself, Arthur smiled, a sad little thing creeping in unwanted from the edges of his mouth. Merlin’s belief in him never wavered. Usually, it terrified Arthur, it was such a blind thing, but just then, he thought that maybe he needed the reassurance. “Don’t ever change, Merlin.” He looked over, aware that he probably looked at Merlin with far too much fondness to be easily dismissed, but for once, he didn’t care. Merlin tilted his head at him, his face shifting between exasperated affection and concern for Arthur’s mood. It was so normal of him that Arthur let his mouth crease and turn up farther. “I want you to always be you. We need that, I think.”

Merlin gave a hesitant grin, uncertain how to take him at the moment. “What, completely unwarranted optimism?”

“Faith,” Arthur corrected. Though in the past, he had likely valued Merlin’s less than he should have. He recalled ridiculing it more than once, actually. And yet the same sentiments from Guinevere’s lips had been welcome – why should the two be so different?

Merlin’s expression turned complicated, but his eyes went soft. “Always.”

* * *

_Arthur left the villagers of Ealdor milling about in the common area, cleaning up the mess and scatter of belongings, farm implements, food and tools that Kanen’s men had left behind. He had noted Merlin’s general direction when he ran after that pessimistic young man, William, but it took him a few moments to pick out the sounds of an argument and trace it to a small hut on the edge of the village, if it could truly be called that with so few buildings standing so close together and mixed in with the animal enclosures. It had been Arthur’s original intent to have it out with the obnoxious young man, but the argument he overheard gave him pause, and he hovered outside a window, uncertain._

_“ – thought he was pompous and arrogant.”_

_Arthur rolled his eyes and listened to a lot of clunking around – furniture being righted and belongings set back where they belonged._

_“Well, nothing’s changed there then.”_

_“BUT…in time I came to respect him for what he stands for, what he does.”_

_Arthur felt the edge of his mouth curl and immediately checked himself. It didn’t matter if Merlin respected him. Or rather, it mattered, but he was the prince – Merlin was_ supposed _to respect him. It shouldn’t make Arthur happy to think he’d earned the good opinion of a peasant; he didn’t have to_ earn _that. His rank afforded it to him by right._

_“Yeah, I know what he stands for.”_

_Arthur crept to the window and eased over until he could see that pompous toad William straightening a…was that a chainmail shirt? Yes. Arthur straightened and felt the majority of his anger slough away like a bird molting its old ragged feathers. Armor and a tunic bearing Cenred’s crest were hung up on a wooden cross like an empty scarecrow. He could see the tearing where the deathblow pierced through, the fabric still edged in old, dark dried blood. It was set up like a shrine, facing the room, in a place of honor, stark testimony to the empty place in that home – a loss etched too deep to fade with time._

_William kept speaking, and Arthur could hear, now, the veneer of arrogance overlaying some festering hurt like a wound that seeped beneath bandages wrapped too tightly over broken ribs for the breath to come easy. “Princes, kings, all men like him.”_

_From out of sight behind the curtain that divided the hut into rooms, Arthur heard Merlin say, “Will, don’t bring what happened to your father into this.” He sounded both as if he took care to say the words with just the right amount of sympathy, and also as if he’d said something like it before and had it go poorly._

_“I’m not,” William snapped, his voice sharp like broken glass. He went on the offensive then, as boys do when they’re hurt and need to lash out just to dam the tears they didn’t want to shed. “Why are you defending him so much? You’re just his servant.”_

_“He’s also my friend.”_

_“Friends don’t lord it over one another.”_

_“He isn’t like that.”_

_“Really?” Skeptical, and mean spirited, but perhaps that last could be forgiven. “Well, let’s wait until the fighting begins and see who he sends in to die first. I guarantee you, it won’t be him.”_

_“I trust Arthur with my life.”_

_Arthur smiled in spite of himself, because no matter his rank, he did value Merlin’s trust. Of course, Merlin was kind of an idiot, and he wasn’t exactly discriminating, so perhaps it was less of compliment and more a testament to Merlin’s clear mental affliction._

_But then William countered, “Is that so? So he knows your secret, then?”_

_Arthur took care to breath quietly, waiting for an assurance that never came. It only occurred to him in that telling silence that he couldn’t imagine what kind of secret Merlin, of all people, might have. He was…he was_ Merlin _. He didn’t have secrets; he could never keep one, for starters. He was just a boy who couldn’t manage to pour wine without making a mess of himself and half the table. Wasn’t he?_

_He had also saved Arthur’s life twice. Clumsy could only forgive so much._

_“Face it, Merlin. You’re living a lie, just like you were here.” To William’s credit, he did sound as if he regretted saying that. “You’re Arthur’s servant, nothing more. Otherwise, you’d tell him the truth.”_

_Arthur strained to hear Merlin’s reply, but the only sounds after that were of picking things up and then sweeping. He turned and leaned against the outside of the hut, sinking down to crouch on the balls of his feet. It shouldn’t matter if Merlin had secrets; all men had secrets. It also shouldn’t matter that maybe not every part of Merlin’s life revolved around Arthur; he was a servant, a freeman, not a slave. He wasn’t indentured to Arthur, no matter that Uther had “gifted” Merlin to him. A freeman was entitled to keep his own counsel. Arthur had no business feeling betrayed by it. He also wouldn’t mistake Merlin again, though. He couldn’t afford to lose sight of the truth, or of the imperfection of men._

_Arthur wiped his hands on his trouser legs and stood. It was stupid anyway, caring at all. He wasn’t here for Merlin; he was here to right a wrong at the failure of a neighboring king. That was the job and duty of a knight, and that was all he was doing here. Arthur nodded to himself and took a deep breath to rid himself of whatever melancholy he’d fallen prey to. There was work to be done now._

* * *

“Hurry up, Merlin!”

“Coming!” He nearly ran into Arthur on the stairs because he was messing with the laces on his new tunic. Not that he knew it was his – technically, it was Arthur’s, but it was too tight around his stomach and he couldn’t wear it. Not that he was admitting that to Merlin. As far as Merlin was concerned, Arthur needed him to attend council to be put forth as the new court physician, Merlin had been wearing the same clothes for more than a day, including napping in them, and there was no time for him to go back to his room to wash and change. So he washed in Arthur’s basin, and was borrowing some of Arthur’s less-worn clothes. Arthur would just refuse to take them back later.

Arthur leaned back to avoid them both going arse over teakettle down the stairs, and smacked his hands away. “If you didn’t dress me every day, I’d think you were incapable of handling clothing at all. Just hold still.” He slapped at Merlin’s errant hand again and then kept a purposefully straight face when Merlin glared at him. How he managed to completely mangle the laces in less than a candlemark, Arthur would never know, but there it was. He tugged and fiddled for a moment, aware of Merlin going preternaturally still on the stair above him, and then paused to see why. “Ah. Lord Aymer. Anything I can do for you?”

Merlin was barely breathing now, and his eyes, slightly too wide, were fixed on a point above Arthur’s head.

“I – sire, my apologies.” Lord Aymer dithered for a moment, which gave Arthur time to finish untangling Merlin’s tunic laces. “I’ll just…”

“Of course,” Arthur chirped. He really shouldn’t be getting such a perverse amount of pleasure from Aymer’s discomfiture. Or from Merlin’s for that matter. “I shall see you at council shortly, Lord Aymer.”

Aymer nodded, angling away but stealing sidelong glances at the spectacle of the king stood a step below his manservant, and apparently assisting said manservant with getting his clothing in order. “Sire.” He wandered away after another confused glance.

Merlin’s muscles uncoiled. “Do you have any idea what kind of gossip this is going to start?”

“Shut up, Merlin.” He did know, actually. It was sure to entertain him for months. “There.” He patted the freshly tied laces and fluffed Merlin’s neckerchief back into place. It looked incongruous against the nicer fabric of the new tunic, but neither one of them wanted to show off the bruises that Arthur had left, and it wasn’t as if Arthur owned anything so banal as a neckerchief to give him along with the rest of the outfit.

Merlin’s cheek twitched in such a manner that he must have clenched his jaw.

“Relax, Merlin.” Arthur turned and continued on his way.

Eventually, Merlin followed, his footsteps more hesitant. “Are you sure about this?”

“Of course I am.” He took a moment to examine Merlin’s body language more carefully. “But I won’t force you to take it. I hope you will, because your reasons for hesitating are dumb, but if you really don’t want to be the court physician, then…I’ll understand.” He paused. “I mean, your reasons will still be dumb, but I’ll understand that.”

“You’ll understand that my reasons are dumb?”

“See? Now you’re catching on.”

“Arthur.” Merlin plucked just hard enough at Arthur’s sleeve that he stopped to engage. “I like being just your servant.”

“It’s beneath you,” Arthur told him sharply, but then he had to back pedal because Merlin didn’t know what Arthur now suspected about his bloodline. “Look. Anyone can be my servant. It takes training and skill to be a physician, and that’s how you can best serve me right now.”

Merlin seemed like he wanted to protest that, but he nodded instead and peered up at Arthur. “Alright. I understand.”

Arthur gave him a hard look. What did he think he understood? Arthur’s reasons were exactly as stated; they certainly didn’t warrant that much gravitas. “Good.” He paused though before facing the stairs again. “I’ll still expect you to attend me daily, just not by feeding or dressing me.”

“You can’t let someone else serve your meals. I have to make sure – ”

Arthur just continued speaking right over him, and clattered down the rest of the stairs as if his momentum might put an end to this wearisome subject. “And we’ll get you a few page boys to run errands and do menial chores.”

“Arthur, your food. People still try to poison you. You can’t expect the kitchen boys to – ”

“I don’t want you spending all of your time grinding things and sweeping. You’ll have advisory duties, and I’ll need you to attend every council from now on.”

“They’re children!” Merlin snapped, hurrying to keep up.

Oh for gods’ sakes. He wasn’t going to let it go, was he. “We should dine together too, to go over royal business. It will save time. There are aspects to the position that Gaius’s age excused him from, but I’ll expect more from you.”

That seemed to make Merlin happier and the smile he offered that time was more genuine. Probably because he was conspiring to get to Arthur’s food before Arthur and make sure it was safe. It wasn’t exactly true, everything Arthur listed as Merlin’s new official duties, as the court physician was only a nominally advisory role, but he was used to talking at Merlin and using him as a personal secretary as well as manservant. Arthur wasn’t willing to give all of that up yet, which may have been unfair to Merlin, but since he didn’t seem to mind, Arthur resolved not to be bothered by it either. He would, however, be having a word with the head cook about the tasting of his food, because he wasn’t about to let Merlin keep doing it, and Merlin wasn’t about to let the kitchen boys do it. Arthur wondered how many other kings had to make such allowances for absurdly devoted servants.

“Good, then it’s settled.” Arthur picked up the pace, wondering if it were just his imagination that at least part of Merlin’s reluctance to be the court physician seemed to stem from the idea of seeing less of him daily.

* * *

Arthur knuckled himself in the forehead and glanced past the edge of his chairback to where Merlin stood propped against a pillar with a pitcher cradled against his chest, staring.

Sir Meliot spoke up, evidently trying to be kind, except that as usual, it came out condescending. “Sire, the lad is a simpleton. I’m sure that I speak for everyone when I say – ”

“Speak for yourself,” Gwaine interjected. He projected cheer and ease, but everyone at the table already knew that Gwaine only sounded like that as a prelude to drawing a blade, normally.

“ – eh.” Meliot’s glance flickered around the other men seated at the table, but he must have seen nothing worrisome, because he continued. “Well, that is to say… I’m sure he made a fine assistant to our former court physician, but he could hardly be expected to shoulder such a burden himself. It would be cruel, sire.”

Arthur blinked a few times, slow like a lizard. Still staring at Meliot, Arthur called again, “Merlin. Have a seat.” He spared a glance for Gaius’s now-empty chair further down on the left, near Geoffrey, but Arthur wasn’t blind to the way that Merlin had refused to go near it all through the dregs of usual council business that took up most of the morning.

He looked to the chair directly beside him instead, at his left hand, where no one had sat since Guinevere’s death. She would have approved, he thought. The memory of her smile, slow and sweet like sunlight, flickered through his mind. _You will be a great king._ There was so much of her in Merlin, or perhaps the reverse. They had both thought better of him than he deserved.

Purposefully, Arthur reached out the hand that had previously been a prop for his chin, and pushed the chair back at an angle so that Merlin could slip through. He dared anyone to challenge him simply by making no reaction whatsoever to the uncertain looks passing between his councilors. Leon, at least, wore a look very similar to Arthur’s, and Gwaine simply glared at the side of Meliot’s head as he very obnoxiously crunched his way through a third apple, probably wishing that he was crunching the cartilage in Meliot’s oversized nose instead.

Lord Howel cleared his throat and then seemed to second guess the wisdom of speaking before he offered, “Sire, we are simply concerned. If the boy is a competent physician, then by all means, he should inherit the position, but the council… Sire, you require wise and learned advice. Not…not the words of a peasant. Sire.”

Arthur swiveled around to get another look at Merlin impersonating a statue. He wasn’t exactly bolstering his own cause. “ _Mer_ lin. Put that down and sit.”

Merlin startled, looked at his pitcher of wine, and then wandered in a circle in search of a table to set it upon. A few seats down, Leon could be heard snickering a bit, but it wasn’t mean. It also wasn’t helping.

Frustrated now, and on the edge of being embarrassed, Arthur stood up and snapped, “Drop the act. You’re not actually an idiot.” He strode over, grabbed the pitcher from Merlin, and set it on the floor with a pointed _thunk_. “See?” He held his hands out as if showcasing the feat of placing a pitcher on the floor. “All better. Now come on.” He hooked Merlin by an arm and walked him over to the table. In hindsight, he probably should have made his intentions clear to the council before springing Merlin on them like this. Or them on him, for that matter. Unfortunately, it was only going to get worse before it was over. “My Lords, may I present Merlin, freeman of Essetir and Camelot.” He pressed on Merlin’s shoulder, which wasn’t all that necessary as Merlin dropped like a stone into his seat before Arthur could do much beyond touch him. “I hereby appoint him to the vacant position of court physician, as he completed his apprenticeship to our former court physician over four years ago and is, in his own right, a qualified physician of the highest order. Further – ” And here, he addressed his remarks toward Meliot. “He will be my personal advisor on all matters that I deem appropriate. If that is a problem for anyone, you are invited to leave.”

“Sire, surely you’ve had your fun.”

Arthur leaned his hands on the table and faced Aymer. “What part of this seems like a jest, my Lord Aymer? The council’s concerns have been addressed, have they not? I would also point out that your queen was born a peasant. You could hardly object on the merits of Merlin’s station alone without also insulting her.”

In his periphery, Arthur saw Merlin grip at the edge of the table with both hands and squeeze until his knuckles turned white. “Sire.”

Arthur straightened and dropped his hand to Merlin’s shoulder, except that he flinched and ruined the effect. “I am waiting, Lord Aymer.”

Merlin’s shoulder tensed up into a knot beneath Arthur’s hand.

“Sire.” Aymer bowed his upper body, but it was not a concession. “With respect, our late queen was of uncommon grace. She cannot be compared to your…manservant.”

Arthur narrowed his eyes, and only realized that he was clenching his hands when Merlin looked up at him, his shoulder still caught in the vice of Arthur’s now tightening fingers. He forced himself to relax. “He is entirely comparable in that regard.”

It was Meliot who dared respond to that, his distaste a thin veneer overtop courtly manners sharp and proper as knives. “Because he also shares your bed?”

Merlin very deliberately leaned away.

Arthur’s hand followed him, enlivened by the flush of temper he felt heating his face. “I beg your pardon, Sir Meliot.”

“Even the boy knows the impropriety of this,” Meliot pressed, gesturing to where Merlin appeared to be trying to disappear into his seat. “A king cannot reward his every _consort_ with a court position.”

It was the inflection that did it, and Arthur felt his muscles easing as if in readiness for a sword battle. “Are you calling my late wife a whore?”

Sir Meliot blinked once and regrouped. “Of course not, sire. Your love for each other was obvious, and she was well suited to be your wife.”

“Ah.” He gave the man a predatory blink. “Then it is only Merlin you’re calling a whore.”

Merlin stirred unexpectedly at that. “Sire, please. It’s not worth it. I know my place.”

Arthur ignored him with a firm tap to the shoulder and moved away from his chair, to better stare down Sir Meliot. “Not that it is any of your concern who shares my bed or why, but rest assured, _sir_ , that my _court physician_ conducts himself with more propriety than you do, apparently. Or do you simply believe me the kind of king who would take advantage of a servant for his own personal pleasure?”

Meliot’s gaze darted back and forth between Arthur and various other members of the council. “Of course not, sire. I would never believe you to be dishonorable like that.”

“Oh, like _that_.” Arthur grinned and sauntered further around the table. “So there are other ways in which I am dishonorable, just not _that one_.”

“Sire – ”

“You forget yourself, Sir Meliot.”

“Excuse me, my lords.”

Arthur looked up at Merlin, surprised to see him standing, though he kept his eyes respectfully on the floor. Or perhaps it was just anger, or mortification. “Merlin, I will handle this.”

“By throwing down a gauntlet?” Merlin demanded. “I am not your maiden to defend, sire. With all due respect, I hardly need be present while you all argue about my honor, or lack thereof, without bothering to address me at all. My time would be better spent assisting the interim physician with his duties. If it pleases the council.” Without waiting for leave, Merlin bowed stiffly, spun around the chair Arthur had put him in, and stalked toward the servant’s entrance. Before he made it, though, he backstepped and turned toward them again, but as before, he kept his eyes down. “And in case anyone wondered, I am _not_ the king’s new bedwarmer, and I do not whore myself out for anything, least of all a bloody royal appointment that I never asked for.” And then he was gone, and the heavy oak side door banged hard shut behind him.

Arthur blinked, and then Aymer remarked, “How dare he disrespect his king in such a manner?”

“I am not the one he disrespected, Lord Aymer.” Arthur backed down from Meliot with a frosty glare and ambled back to his chair. He caught a whiff of something like lightning in the air and realized why Merlin had kept his eyes so carefully downcast. “And I would caution you, before you decide to issue some sort of challenge against your supposedly stained honor, that Merlin answers to _me_. And only to me.”

Lord Howell cleared his throat. “Sire, if I may. We all know that the boy holds a place of honor for his service to you. Some of us were present when he pulled you out of the way of the Collin witch’s dagger, and was awarded the position as your manservant. He is, of course, completely devoted to your majesty and would follow you into any danger you faced. But we cannot conflate this with a suitability to judge matters of court. He is a simple lad, sire. It is commendable that he has learned the physician’s trade, but he is not fit for more. To expect him to take the place of a royal advisor is unfair to him. He will only be shamed when he fails.”

“You have such a low opinion of the man to whom I owe my life?”

“No, of course not.” Lord Howell shifted and glanced around in an effort to find support. A few people looked back, but there was no outpouring of camaraderie for him. “His actions were, of course, laudible. But it should not be mistaken for competence.”

Gwaine finally stirred at that. “Neither should nobility.” He continued to absently pick his teeth with a splintered bit of wood, which better not have come from the underside of the table. He was like a damn toddler.

Arthur flared his nostrils but sat in an effort to diffuse the situation, though it wasn’t what he wanted to do. It was simply the stronger diplomatic position to take just then. “This is not up for debate, gentlemen. It is already decided, and you will abide by it.” Arthur caught Sir Geoffrey’s eye, who appeared uncomfortable at the conversation raging around him. “Sir Geoffrey, you have drawn up the necessary papers?”

“Yes, sire.” Geoffrey leaned back to pass a scroll to a lad standing behind him. “The appointment and compensation is laid out in detail.”

The boy held out the scroll timidly and Arthur smiled at him, little thing that he was. “If there is nothing else, gentlemen?” Arthur rose without waiting for anyone to bring up a new subject, or to rehash the old one, and the counsel rose as well in his wake with a chorus of scraping chairs, creaking limbs and visible ire. Leon followed him silently to the servant’s door, and after a moment spent staring Lords Aymer and Howell, and Sir Meliot out of the room for posterity, so did Gwaine.

Once out in the back corridor, Arthur flung his gauntlet at a wall and then kicked it for good measure. It went skittering off down the corridor and bumped into a cabinet before stopping.

And of course, Leon just had to point out, “Merlin’s going to have to fix that.”

Arthur paused and curled his fingers into his palms, the fine leather of his gloves creaking at the strain. With a great deal of false cheer, Arthur remarked, “I hate them. The whole fat lot of them. They’re utterly useless.”

Gwaine wandered over, thumbs hooked in his sword belt, eyes unfocused and meandering somewhere down toward the far end of the corridor. “You lack confidence, and they know it.”

Arthur and Leon both blinked over at him, startled.

Still musing at a point in the distance, Gwaine explained, “You’re not the king when you’re in there. You aren’t ruling. You’re asking them to agree with you, and they never will.”

A year ago, Gwaine’s words would have roused Arthur to a fine temper, but now, he merely considered this habitual drunken flirt that most took for a handsome fool who happened to be good at swordplay. “What do you mean? I _am_ the king.”

“But you don’t act like it.” Gwaine swayed himself back from wherever he’d gone and gave both of them an unconvincing grin. How had Arthur never seen the melancholy in it before? “A king is a leader. He asks for advice from his counselors, not complicity or compromise. He doesn’t rule _with_ them; he _rules_ them. If you acted like this on the battlefield, no one would follow you. It’s the same in there – it’s just another battlefield, with less blood and better clothes.”

Arthur rotated to face him properly. “I’m listening.”

Gwaine blinked, perhaps surprised by that, and then schooled himself again. “When we face an army, you ask for reports. You ask for intelligence. You ask about past battles with similar features. You hear what everyone has to say, and then you decide for yourself what we’re doing. You don’t ask us to accept the plan, you _tell us_ what we’re doing, and the only part that we have to decide for ourselves is how to execute our part of it. What you’re doing in there is a negotiation, no matter how you phrase things. And the only place for that is after the battle is won.”

Leon stared at Gwaine as if he’d never seen him before, much the same as Arthur suspected he was doing. Then Leon guffawed and smacked him on the shoulder. “It’s almost like you know what you’re talking about.”

Gwaine shared in the ribbing with a grin and flipped his hair out of his eyes. “Being Lot’s son is good for something.” He looked down and ignored Leon’s attempt not to suddenly drop his jaw at that revelation. He sketched a mockery of a courtly bow, but there wasn’t much actual mockery in it. “You aren’t weak, princess. Stop acting like it.”

There wasn’t much that Arthur could think to say to that, so he merely nodded, and watched Gwaine shamble off out of sight with his half-eaten apple and his wood splinter.

* * *

~TBC~


	6. Chapter 6

_Arthur took a sudden, disbelieving breath as the piercing, formless light resolved around the shape of a man. “Father.”_

_“Arthur.” Uther’s face appeared pale, backlit like a shadow, and soft. There was kindness there in the lines around his mouth, and the smoothness of his eyes, which Arthur could only remember as creases of concern or worse while he’d lived._

_It was relief that made Arthur’s breath come faster, shaking his head as he confessed, “I thought I’d never see you again.” He watched a smile hint its way into the line of Uther’s mouth. “There isn’t a day that passes when I don’t think of you.”_

_“And I you.”_

_It felt overwhelming. Arthur could barely breathe through the emotion clogging his chest, the memory of holding his father close with blood on his hands, trying desperately to think through the haze of alcohol and some heavier drug, how to get help, how to stop this, make it a nightmare and nothing more. The horrible empty feeling of sitting beside a corpse and knowing that he put it there not because he failed or because his ambitions got the better of him, but because he had loved and made the wrong choice. “There are times when I feel so alone, I wish more than anything that you were by my side.”_

_“If I were at your side, I fear you would not like all that I have to say.” It was an apology and a kindness, but a harsh one._

_It hurt. All Arthur wanted was his father’s pride – his approval. To know that he was doing a good job. Arthur furrowed his brow, and that old familiar shame invaded his chest – the feeling that he was a disappointment, and not worth the sacrifice of life that made his birth possible. But he wanted to be worth the loss that bore him. He wanted to make his father proud – make him shed the regret he must have carried for wanting Arthur at all. And he needed guidance, because he didn’t think he was doing well as king. He wasn’t thriving, and he feared that his kingdom wouldn’t either. “What do you mean?”_

_“Many of the decisions you’ve made since you’ve become king go against all that I taught you.”_

_Arthur looked down. It would have been easier to bear if it had been said in anger or disappointment. But Uther’s voice, his face, displayed only love and understanding. “I have done what I believe to be right.”_

_“You have ignored our tradition,” Uther replied, and as he came closer, some of the familiar hardness crossed his countenance. “Our ancient lores. You have allowed common men to become knights.”_

_This was an old disagreement, and something that Arthur at least knew how to argue about with his father. And defending his men was easy; it hardly needed thought to tell the truth of that. “And they are some of the finest knights that Camelot’s ever known.”_

_Uther’s face darkened into something more like himself when living._

_“Arthur injected more surety into his voice when he insisted, "They would gladly give their lives for the kingdom.”_

_“They question your decisions. They make you look weak.”_

_Arthur turned as his father stepped around behind him, feeling a bit as if he were being outflanked on a field of battle. “Listening to others is a sign of strength, not…weakness.” Wasn’t it? Hadn’t Uther taught him to listen to the council of his betters?_

_The sneer that Arthur remembered so well materialized on Uther’s face like a murk of mud and silt surfacing in a billow in shallow water, stirred by careless footsteps. “How do you expect anyone to fear a king who does not know his own mind?”_

_Arthur swallowed because that hit too close to home. He doubted himself, and he knew it, and he had no idea what he wanted beyond each individual moment – what he wanted from his life or for his own legacy, or if he had any wants or goals at all. He stumbled over his words when he replied, “I don’t want my people to respect me because they fear me.”_

_“Then they will not respect you at all.”_

_* * *_

Arthur left Leon at the armory and continued on toward the physician’s chambers. He wanted to make sure that Merlin understood that no consensus of the court was needed, and that he was now the Court Physician. More though, Arthur needed to apologize because none of that had gone well, and he should have had better control of both his counselors and his temper. He resisted the impulse to squeeze the scroll in his hand detailing the appointment, and glanced down at his royal seal inscribed in an uneven circle of red wax. The council would never have disrespected his father like that. But they had feared his father. Arthur didn’t think himself capable of ruling that way. He didn’t like being thought a tyrant. And Merlin wouldn’t ever smile at him again if he were. But Gwaine was right; Arthur’s authority with the counsel was lacking, king or no, and that had to change.

Arthur shook himself and paused in the corridor to watch the door at the end. He could recall seeing it open all of the time, welcoming visitors, when he had been a small child, before Morgana came to live with them. His nurses could never keep reliable track of him back then, and he seemed to end up here more often than not, the path a well-tread memory in his mind. Usually, the sun would be shining though the high narrow windows of the staircase, spilling out through the open infirmary door like a beacon. Gaius had been young then, his hair darker, like autumn leaves, and his face smooth. Uther would be in there too as often as not. Arthur wondered how such a friendship had grown, if Uther’s close kindness to his personal physician formed in direct proportion to the fear of someone assassinating him in the same manner as his brother Aurelius, through poison in a medicine bottle. Or if once, they had been alike, and perhaps Uther had been as Arthur was: partly blind to rank when considering the merits of a good man. That door had been closed more than open now for decades. Gaius’s comfort with his position at court must have waned. He had spent the best part of his adult life alone in there, hiding. Perhaps it was he who passed the inclination to Merlin. Or perhaps it was Arthur’s conduct that had caused that.

Merlin might not even be in there. Arthur assumed, of course, but Merlin had been hard to pin down lately, never lurking exactly where Arthur expected. A gentle clatter rang forth, however, so he took a deep breath and readied himself for an apology and a bit of a humbling. He had done his servant a disservice by allowing doubt to be cast on his honor and his competence, and for focusing on his own indignation rather than on putting those doubts to rest. They had more to talk about besides, because Arthur still had every intention of giving Merlin back the noble status that had been stripped from Balinor, but he saw now why Geoffrey had been so adamant in advising caution. The court was not stable, and that was Arthur’s fault. He needed to be a better leader if he wanted to fix it, but he would need help for that.

The door pushed open easily with a creak of wooden hinges, and Arthur squinted at the bright light pouring through the windows to the left. His entrance stirred a sharp draft and in the swirl of dust kicked up off of the floor, for just a moment, Arthur saw Guinevere standing in the light, in her yellow maid’s dress. She had a hand raised as if reaching to grasp Merlin’s shoulder in gentle concern, like the friend she had once been. Arthur tripped on the threshold and by the time he caught himself, she was gone, the vision little more than a remnant of seeing her here years ago, cast into the settling dust like a knife to his chest. He breathed heavily for a moment, his heart racing, fingers white where they gripped the doorjamb. Merlin seemed oblivious to Arthur even being there. He stood facing the shelves of dried herbs, chin tipped up with the fingers of one hand absently tapping at his chest.

Arthur stood upright on wobbly legs and forced himself to find some measure of composure again. “Merlin?” He nearly cringed at how thready and pitched it came out.

Merlin swayed as he came back to himself and tipped his head around to look at Arthur, his eyes like mirrored seas reflecting the shine of an overcast sky, unnatural.

Quickly but carefully, Arthur set the sealed scroll onto a worktop and crossed the room to get a better look at him. Merlin turned vaguely to face him and smiled softly at Arthur’s chest. Spidery fingers reached out to tap at Arthur’s tunic laces and the royal pendant before Merlin hummed a bit and flickered his unfocused gaze back to where the bottles of powdered herbs twinkled in the sunlight, watery blue irises drowning his pupils. His fingers hooked into Arthur’s collar and hung there.

“Come sit down,” Arthur told him, pulling at his arm. He remained calm through some supernatural aegis because in his mind and the sink of his stomach, he was terrified to see this again. “Come on.” He plucked Merlin’s hand off and drew him toward the worktable by it. Merlin went without protest, loose as if he’d been at the ale, a large fluttery moth on a string. “Sit,” Arthur encouraged, his own voice hoarse and gentle. He pushed several bowls and supplies away from the edge of the table – out of Merlin’s reach – and then straddled the bench behind him. “Sit there. Just relax. Everything will be fine.”

Merlin’s head weaved as he looked up at some point of nothing near the ceiling, gentle like waves made by the wind across the top of a wheat field. Arthur tugged him back into his body, one arm tucked up under Merlin’s with a few fingers still caught in his grasp. Some hint of awareness must have remained for a moment because Merlin frowned and wobbled his gaze down to where his fingers were tangled up with Arthur's, but then he took a sudden, deep breath that expanded his torso. His free hand dropped to Arthur’s leg, tucked tight against his hip, and he tensed up with several sharp gulps of air as if he were hyperventilating, or about to be sick. Arthur moved with him briefly and then grimaced as Merlin’s muscles contracted and pulled in, fingers gouging hard into the meaty part of Arthur’s palm where their hands rested over Merlin’s chest, his other hand twisting and pulling at Arthur’s trouser leg, breath going choppy like freezing to death in the snow.

“It’s alright.” Arthur wasn’t sure who he said it for more, since he didn’t think Merlin was exactly aware right now. The back of Merlin’s head dug into Arthur’s shoulder even as the rest of his upper body curled forward over their joined hands and juddered like the moment after hypothermia breaks, and Arthur fought the urge to restrict his movements and cause more harm by it. “Alright. I’ve got you. It’s alright.” Arthur kept his eyes unfocused and fixed forward, stoic and resolute that he shouldn’t look if he didn’t have to. He was aware of the painfully hard clench of Merlin’s jaw where the line of it pressed against Arthur’s cheek, and of the uneven shaking of limbs like a severe palsy as Merlin’s body curled into itself in some places and flexed away in others. The blood rushing though Arthur’s head throbbed like being underwater – like the fight or flight impulse of facing a coming battle, surreal, as if he were standing two steps to one side of himself, marooned on the wrong side of his own skin. He could smell something unnatural in the air, dragons and water and dusty sunshine that hurt his eyes, and the flowers tucked into his wife’s hair, and blood running across rocks where his sister lay dead. It reeked like screaming and desperation, and tasted like fear as he clutched and dragged back the only thing still living in that place with him. Merlin twisted up to one side, curled into Arthur’s chest, his legs drawing up against the bench legs where one foot began to tap out uneven staccatos against the wood. An elongated grunt sheered from Merlin’s throat like a rockfall, or a dragon’s cry, or just simple agony held at bay.

The moment shattered and dragged Arthur back to the present in a rush of sound as the door swung inward at the other end of the room. Arthur found himself blinking hard as Gwaine’s still form swam into view, frozen momentarily on the threshold in shock tinged with rust and fury. When Gwaine started to lunge forward, Leon appeared to grab him and haul him back. Arthur breathed too fast, disoriented and unable to understand the words behind the harsh arguing that ensued. He held Merlin’s painfully convulsing form, a thick curl of pointed limbs and stacked ribs held tight to itself in Arthur’s arms, the cord of tendon in his neck set out in sharp relief too close to Arthur’s face for him to pretend he didn’t see. The only clear sound in the room was that of the broken bursts of air forcing its way through Merlin’s flared nostrils, the insistent broken tap-tap-tap of one foot, and the click of choked-off noises caught fast in Merlin’s throat. 

Arthur looked up at a swirl of movement in his periphery to find Gwaine standing next to them, calm now, his face pained. He started to reach out and then all but flung himself away, his back to Arthur and his discarded hand clenched at his side. “It’s alright,” Arthur told him. His own voice sounded stupid in his ears. “It will pass in a moment.”

Gwaine glanced over his shoulder, incredulous, eyes skimming over Merlin and Arthur both as if he didn't want to look, but couldn't help the morbid urge to glance. Then he shook his head and moved farther away. Arthur knew how he felt; he didn’t know how he was handling it either. Merlin seemed to be breathing more easily now at least, if still heavy in hard flaps like a thick woven standard whipped about by wind gusts on the battlement. A rapid heartbeat hammered against the side of his hand, still pressed to Merlin’s chest, and Arthur's body relaxed in increments, timed to the slow stilling and unfurling of Merlin’s until they were breathing in synch, and Merlin seemed to be doing little more than twitching now and then. Arthur listened to something that sounded like hiccups – sharp pips of sound tagged at the end of each inhale as Merlin’s limbs gave tiny leftover jerks against Arthur’s, and then Merlin shuddered once more and slumped in his arms, panting as if he’d run for miles. His head lolled back on Arthur’s shoulder and his fingers nearly slipped from Arthur’s grasp. His chest kept spasming in widening intervals accompanied by a few latent tics of his head against Arthur’s shoulder, bleeding off the overexertion of muscles not accustomed to working so hard.

Arthur took several breaths to calm himself and soothe the burning in his lungs, then swallowed the last one. It took a moment for him to realize that the seasick feeling came from his own subtle rocking, back and forth, back and forth with Merlin draped limp over his chest and arms. He stopped and tried to get a look at Merlin’s face. Slits of dull blue shone from behind half-lowered lids, uncomfortably reminiscent of the way someone’s face looked freshly dead, slack in that instant when the breath leaves them but the warmth of the skin has not. Arthur forced back the kick in his chest at that thought and made himself notice the whistling of air in Merlin’s throat - the movement of life in his body. He wasn’t unconscious, but he wasn’t truly awake either.

“It never left you, did it.”

Arthur’s breath hitched as he looked up.

“Whatever happened out there.” Gwaine nodded in no particular direction, just _out_ , but there was no mistaking that he meant the day Guinevere died. Arthur had come back different. Everyone had noticed.

“It was bad,” Arthur agreed. His voice didn’t sound like his own.

“Is that where this started?”

“Probably,” Arthur whispered.

Gwaine merely nodded and sighed. “Sorry I shouted.”

Arthur ticked his head in a negative gesture, because he hadn't really noticed.

“It looked like you were hurting him.” Gwaine wandered around past the table and poked at the open food cupboard. “Leon’s gone for help. Not sure I trust the mole man, though.”

“Hubert.” Arthur considered that for a moment. “I think. I can never remember his name.”

Gwaine grunted in agreement and fished out a little pot of dried leaves. He sniffed them, considered, and then took them over to the fire.

Arthur narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing?”

“Making tea.” Gwaine poked an iron rod at the fire until it flared back up, then swung a kettle over it.

“Tea.” Arthur frowned doubtfully.

“Only useful thing my mother ever taught me. Well.” He grinned. “That and how to cheat your way through life.”

Arthur gave him a stern look, but Merlin stirred before he could retort. “Easy.” He angled both of them forward so that Merlin could sit up a bit and cast a bleary stare at the mess on the worktable. He nearly pitched forward a moment later, so Arthur kept an arm around him and let him brace his hands on Arthur’s knees.

By the time Gwaine stepped into view with a few cups balanced carefully in his hands, Merlin had his elbows on the table and his head in his hands, possibly fighting nausea or a bit of room spinning. His muscles were better than jelly, at least, and Arthur no longer needed to prop him up. He continued to weave a bit where he sat, though, gently listing to the right as if keeping his balance in a fishing boat. “Hey, Merls.” Gwaine nudged him as if afraid he might knock him straight over again. “Drink up. It’s, um…leaf tea.”

Merlin wobbled his head to look at the proffered cup and stared at it until Gwaine pushed it under his nose, at which point something automatic took over. Merlin wrapped his hands around the warmth of it, but he didn’t drink it. His nose nearly touched the rim of the cup as he frowned at it.

Arthur wrinkled his face up when Gwaine went to hand him one too. “Is it safe? You don’t even know what it is.”

“It’s tea,” Gwaine replied as if Arthur were the slow one. “It was in the food cupboard. Why wouldn’t it be safe?”

Arthur could think of a dozen reasons to suspect it, actually, but he accepted the cup anyway and took a sip quickly to make sure it wasn’t going to kill them all. Only after he swallowed did it occur to him what he was doing, and he considered that he should be more charitable in future to Merlin’s insistence on being Arthur’s food tester. From this side of the thing, it made perfect sense to Arthur why Merlin would have no qualms or hesitation about doing it for him. “Chamomile,” Arthur announced, and then scrubbed his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “I hate chamomile.”

Gwaine gave him a wide grin. “Good thing I didn’t really make it for you, then.” He poked Merlin’s arm and his smile nearly flickered out when Merlin looked at him with only the slightest sense of recognition. “Drink that,” Gwaine told him, more gentle about it than Arthur had ever heard him.

Merlin finally seemed to realize that he had a drink in his hands and took an uncoordinated sip. It consisted more of him lowering his face to the cup than of lifting the cup to his mouth.

Gwaine snagged an apple from amongst the detritus of the bench and bumped it into the back of Merlin’s hand until Merlin dropped his fingers around it, but he didn’t do anything other than hold it. Gwaine frowned. “How long does this last?”

Arthur shrugged and rubbed his hand vigourously between Merlin’s shoulder blades before shifting to tuck his hair away from his face and then fix his skewed neckerchief. “A candlemark or so.”

Gwaine watched Arthur fuss with the collar of Merlin’s tunic next, and then remarked, apropos of nothing, “Why don’t you just tell him that you love him?”

For a moment, Arthur didn’t move, and then he shoved to his feet without much thought for where he was going. “I can’t do that.”

“Why?”

When Arthur looked back, hands restless on his hips, it was to see Gwaine using his boot knife to cut the apple into slices that he lined up near Merlin’s hand. Arthur had to look away again, his mind swimming. A vision struck him, like a horrible memory, of ash kicking up like fog in the orange light of the setting sun, and apple slices sweet on his tongue. He’d done a bad thing, but his father was smiling and proud and it felt like he loved Arthur, so it must have been good. Eventually, Arthur heard crunching and directed himself to the table again, where Merlin was eating the apple slices carefully, seeming more present as he watched Gwaine clean his knife. “You’re very protective of him.”

Gwaine didn’t bother looking up from what he was doing, but the knife must have been clean by now. “Took you long enough to notice.”

“No, it didn’t.” Arthur wandered closer and Merlin looked up at him, eyes mostly focused. His smile went to Merlin, but the words were for Gwaine. “You’ve always been. Why?”

“I’ve told you before,” Gwaine replied. He acted like it wasn’t important, or that he was only giving the conversation the bare minimum of his attention, but Arthur had seen him fight. He knew the ruse for what it was. “He never expects any praise. He does things just for the good of doing them, as if there isn’t any limit to how much of himself he can give.” He finally gave up on the knife and set it down, watching Merlin watch Arthur without recognition. “There is, though; everyone has limits. Somebody has to look out for his, because he won’t.”

“Yes, but why you?”

“He’s my friend.” Gwaine met Merlin’s gaze when he looked over at the sound of his voice, and he grinned, soft and private. “I don’t have many.”

“Merlin has lots of friends,” Arthur countered, unhappy with the clench of jealousy in his chest as Merlin returned the smile without thought, but too aware of it to give in to the pettiness.

Gwaine shook his head, off-hand like it meant nothing to him that Arthur even existed. “No, he doesn’t. And too many of the ones that were are dead now.”

Arthur took that in for a moment. “Why do you call him a friend?”

At first, it seemed that Gwaine wouldn’t answer, but with Merlin still vague on his surroundings and focused again on tea and apple wedges, he finally said, “Because even when I was just some drunk in a tavern, he looked at me like I mattered.” Gwaine appeared uncomfortable with the conversation, but he wasn’t the sort to back down just because something bothered him. “And that never changed. No matter what he’s found out about me, or what I’ve done, or who I tell him I am, he still looks at me the same.” More to himself, or perhaps to Merlin, Gwaine added, “Like I mean something.”

There was pride in that, and Arthur tried to imagine what would have made a king’s son, even Lot’s, ever believe that he didn’t. Even at Uther’s worst criticisms, Arthur had known his own worth.

“You can’t expect him to keep living like this.”

Arthur only realized he had turned to stare blankly at a window when he had to look back at Gwaine’s words.

“In a kingdom where magic is banned.” Gwaine looked at Arthur, his face stern with disapproval, and maybe with some sympathy for a king who still lived in another’s shadow. “It will kill him, and I don’t mean by your fires.”

Arthur didn’t have a chance to respond to that because Merlin took the opportunity to twist on the bench and grip Gwaine’s shoulder. He made an admonishing noise and Gwaine just shook his head. Merlin looked over at Arthur instead, his eyes bleary, but his face somewhat back to normal, back in the room with them.

Arthur walked back over and dropped onto the bench opposite Merlin at the table. “How are you feeling?”

Merlin looked down for a moment and visibly struggled to find the right word before slurring out, “Sore.”

Arthur nodded. “The physician is coming. I mean, I’m sure you’re fine, but Leon… Never mind.” He waved away everything he was saying because Merlin was looking at him in confusion. “He’ll look you over just to be sure.”

“Gaius?” Merlin brightened and looked behind himself, then down at where Arthur had found the body. “No,” Merlin answered himself.

“No,” Arthur breathed in apology. He watched Merlin scrub at his chest and then the tabletop for a moment, obviously trying to orient himself better. “We were at council this morning,” Arthur offered.

Merlin nodded, then looked down at himself. “Not my clothes?”

“No. I mean yes, they are now. But…no.” Arthur was pretty sure he wasn’t helping anything. “Who is that?” he asked, pointing at Gwaine.

Merlin glared at him for a bleary heartbeat, looked at Gwaine, and then stalled on the answer.

Gwaine looked gutted for a bare second, but recovered before Merlin noticed. “It’s fine,” Gwaine chirped. “Look, drink that.” He mussed up Merlin’s hair to make him huff and smile like a five year old, and then shot Arthur a frightened look.

Arthur shook his head to dismiss the concern. “Merlin, what kingdom are we in?”

“Albion.”

“Yes, but which part?”

Merlin frowned, then finally said, “Your part. That’s Gwaine.” He hooked his thumb at said knight and then grunted in protest when he found himself accosted with some kind squeezy bear hug. “Stop, m’fine.” He smacked Gwaine away and then gripped the table’s edge to keep his balance where he sat.

Arthur laughed at the indignant way that Gwaine straightened himself back out, like a great big agitated bird, then addressed Merlin again. “Do you remember what happened this morning?”

“Elise.” Merlin turned the cup of half-drunk tea in a circle. “Sewing.” He blinked several times in rapid succession and stared off into nothing for a moment. “Gwaine ate apples at council.” Merlin’s gaze returned to Arthur. “Did you challenge someone?” Then something else occurred to him and he paled. “Did I yell at the council?”

Gwaine snorted. “Nothing they didn’t deserve.”

“Oh my god.” Merlin buried his face against the table. “I’m for the stocks, aren’t I.”

Arthur waved that off. “Since I put you on the council, you can address it whenever you like.”

Merlin rolled his forehead against the table and then snapped his head up. “You what?”

“Put you on the council,” Arthur repeated slowly, as if speaking to a simpleton. He regretted that immediately, because it was too close just now, but he was used to addressing Merlin like that whenever he needed to repeat something.

A measure of syrupy slur came out in Merlin’s words, in spite of the deliberate way he pronounced them, when he asked, “Why did you do that?” He sounded genuinely curious, at least, rather than indignant about it the way he had been that morning when Arthur told him of his new appointment.

Arthur swallowed. “I named you Court Physician. We talked about it this morning?”

Merlin tilted his head and then shook it like a sailor draining water from his ear. Then he looked at the diminished pile of apple slices in front of him, and the barely-touched tea. With evident care not to knock anything over, he pulled his hands back and let them drop into his lap, his eyes fixed on the table’s edge. “I can’t.”

“Merlin – ”

“Look at me,” Merlin exhorted, but there was shame in the curve of his neck and the way he hid his face. “I couldn’t even remember his name a moment ago.” He flapped some fingers against Gwaine’s arm as if he’d misjudged the distance between them. “And you’re going to trust me with patients?”

“It’ll pass,” Arthur argued. He let out a huff and tried to laugh Merlin’s concern off as nerves. “You lived like this a year with no one the wiser. It doesn’t stop you doing your chores, or writing my speeches – ”

“Because I can stop when I have to. And if I mess up or get confused, no one is going to die because I washed laundry in the wrong bucket, or left it in a corner somewhere and forgot. And you expect me to be late everywhere, or to disappear for a day, and it doesn’t matter. What if there’s an emergency? Or I accidentally mix a potion wrong?” Merlin interrupted. “Or give you the wrong bottle? What if I poison you because I can’t – ” He visibly searched for a word that would adequately describe what happens when a fit is coming on, or after. He gave up quickly though, perhaps because he didn’t want to name it. “Arthur, it’s not safe for me to do this.”

Arthur refused that outright, head shaking to negate it out of hand. “There have got to be treatments for this. Something to make them stop, or come less. Gaius said he had herbs.”

“I don’t know what they are, or how to prepare them – Gaius didn’t get a chance to tell me. I don’t even know where he put them. And that's just more proof - if I were really ready to be the Court Physician, I'd already know how to treat this.”

“Gaius consulted his books all of the time - he didn't just store everything in his head. And after a lifetime of studying medicine, even he couldn't make you better on a whim.” Arthur pushed away from the table again and paced to the ledge below the window that overlooked the courtyard. He couldn’t see anything on the ground from where he stood, but he could see up to where a few lone puffy clouds floated in a bright sky. "We'll figure it out."

“I don’t know when they’re coming,” Merlin pressed. “What if someone is bleeding out and I just…”

Arthur listened to him trail off and pictured the gesture he would have made, like a toppling motion, or like presenting a gloriously dead body on the table before him. He didn’t respond, but he did wonder why he was so adamant about this, that Merlin should be the Court Physician – that he should have this title. It felt as if he, Arthur, were the one being cheated. He didn’t like the feeling that it was selfish of him to want this when Merlin kept indicating that maybe he didn’t, or shouldn’t. And his points were valid, and that just…rankled.

Thankfully, Leon appeared again with a soft knock on the door, and Arthur only had to say, “We’ll discuss this later,” before retreating with Gwaine to stand near the door where Leon hovered.

Uninvited, Gwaine murmured, “He may be right.”

Arthur merely treated him to baleful look and Gwaine took the hint to back off. He spied the sealed royal appointment sitting innocuously on the little table near Merlin’s elbow, unopened and unnoticed. It made him angry only because he felt helpless over it. He faced Leon instead. “Where’s the physician?”

“Overseeing a birth,” Leon replied. “I told him we knew how to manage it, but he’ll come if you order it. I told him it wasn’t necessary to leave the woman but that you’ll want him later, when he’s free.”

It wasn’t ideal, but Arthur could hardly insist on the man’s presence when Merlin seemed to be coming out of it alright, and some poor woman travailing was far more important. “Alright.”

“He gave me instructions on a sleeping draught, if we need to keep him calm.” Leon pulled out a folded piece of parchment from his sleeve, under the wrist guard. “Said it’s already prepared, he saw it on the shelves this morning.” Leon frowned down at the parchment as if he couldn’t read the writing. “Purple liquid, labeled with a….this thing.” He pointed at some kind of runic scribble.

Arthur squinted in an effort to also make it out; it looked familiar. He’d seen it often enough in Morgana’s chambers. Arthur looked back past his shoulder to find Merlin fingering the edges of the wax seal on the royal appointment. He seemed…wistful. He looked like he wanted it, but knew he couldn’t take it – as if it wasn’t his. The sun winked in through the window, a rolling susurration of light intermittently hidden by clouds, and Arthur watched the shine paint a haze in the dust of the room, and around the puffs of disordered hair on Merlin’s head, a fuzzy illumination that cast his face into shadow. Eventually, Arthur confessed out loud, “Guinevere was in here.”

Both Leon and Gwaine stopped making silent communications with each other in favor of staring at him.

“I saw her standing in the light.” Arthur felt his face go soft around the edges as he watched Merlin pick at the ribbon on the scroll and then drag the parchment over in front of himself. “She was wearing her yellow dress.”

Leon threw a quick look at Gwaine, and then said, “Sire, are you…”

“I’m not mad,” Arthur murmured. He kept his eyes trained on Merlin breaking the seal quietly and then fingering the parchment as if unsure whether he should open it the rest of the way or not. “I know she wasn’t there. It was a trick of the light.”

Finally, Merlin bit his lip and unrolled a bit of the parchment. His finger traced a few of the letters, but he was shaking his head gently back and forth, and seemed upset by it.

Arthur looked down for a moment, and then addressed Leon again. “Is he right?”

The change in subject threw Leon off for a moment. “Sire?”

“Is this too much to put on him,” Arthur clarified lowly, “in his current condition?”

Leon blinked a few times. “No, sire.” He said it as if he couldn’t even understand why Arthur would ask such a thing. “And…with respect, he has earned the position. You cannot take it away from him now.”

All of them fell silent when Merlin struggled to his feet and retreated across the room, unsteady but determined, leaving the scroll behind on the table. Arthur looked at it, at how Merlin had apparently tried to crumple part of it, and then raised his eyes again in time to catch the thump of the tower room door closing.

Gwaine sighed off to one side. “I think he heard us.”

Arthur shook his head and wandered back over to the table to smooth out the royal appointment. They all went still for a moment at the sound of something breaking in the closed room above them, and then ignored it after the second deliberate crash of glass and clay. Arthur sighed once everything went silent again, started to head across the room, and then stopped, uncertain. People needed space sometimes to work through their anger, but Arthur knew that for himself, he always wanted Merlin near when things bothered him, even when he knew how unbearable he could be to his servant. Arthur didn’t know if he should intrude, if it would be welcome, if Merlin’s anger were similar to Arthur’s or not. Another thump sounded from the tower room, a lonely little thud of frustration. Arthur looked to Gwaine for some sort of cue because as much as he hated to admit it, Gwaine understood Merlin better at times, and this was likely one of them.

Gwaine huffed and gave him a nasty look, then approached the tower room himself. “Merlin!” He knocked on the door and propped a shoulder against the wall of the little alcove. “Are you decent, mate?”

Arthur retrieved the royal appointment, then came up behind Gwaine. Leon followed after a longer moment of reflection. They exchanged a look at the sound of broken glass and other bits being swept into a pile. With a brief reconsideration of the thought that Merlin might be better left alone for now, Arthur tried the door. He was actually surprised when it opened. Through the narrow crack he made, Arthur could see the back of Merlin’s head where he knelt on the other side of the narrow cot, bowed low as his shoulder blades flexed beneath the fine tunic Arthur had given him, moving in time with the sweeping motion of his hands.

Arthur shuffled in and took in the clutter that seemed to be Merlin’s natural state, pushing a blanket and a few books out of the way with his boot. It hadn't taken long for the mess to migrate back across the floor after Gaius had lain here in wait. Merlin sniffed, a delicate sound, and slowed in his sweeping of glass and terra cotta shards. Arthur stepped around the bed, eyes caught on the bare back of Merlin's neck and the overlapping cuts there, old ridges of scar tissue, to find Merlin using his neckerchief to push the shards into a neat pile without cutting himself. He stopped as soon as Arthur’s shadow fell on him, and worried at the cloth in his hands instead. “Did you really see her?”

It wasn’t at all what Arthur expected him to say. “It was just a trick of the light.” Was it cruel to dismiss it when Merlin seemed to think it significant enough to mention? “She wasn’t really there.”

Merlin wagged his head and looked down so that Arthur couldn’t see his face. “I can hear her sometimes.”

“Merlin…” Arthur warned, fighting not to glance behind him where Gwaine and Leon were no doubt trading uneasy looks.

“I know you don’t want to talk about her,” Merlin allowed. And that seemed to be the end of it; whatever was bothering him about that, he wouldn’t share it with Arthur because the only times they brought her up anymore was when they were shouting at each other.

Arthur glanced back to find Leon and Gwaine loitering in a farce of privacy in the doorway, then took a breath and sat on the cot so that his knees threatened to brush up against the side of Merlin’s ribcage. He could see bits of colored glass in the pile of darker bits of thin stone, clay and pewter on the floor near Merlin’s trouser leg. “It’s not that I don’t want to talk about her. Or pretend she was never here.”

But Merlin refused to engage in that conversation, and instead bent to start collecting the broken chips of what might have been a bowl into his neckerchief, cupped in the palm of his hand. “I’ll see to your chambers this afternoon, sire. I need to run medicines to the lower town first.”

Arthur blinked at the side of his head a few times. “George can see to my chambers, and Hubert can see to the medicines for another day, at least.”

“I’d rather do it myself.” Merlin folded the neckerchief around the little pile of sharp edges and chips, then clambered stiffly to his feet.

“You should be resting.” Arthur followed suit, fighting not to crush the royal appointment in a fit of frustration with Merlin’s bull-headedness. “And I’ve promoted you, Merlin. You don’t clean my chambers anymore.”

Merlin puttered about near the cupboard with the wrapped shards in one hand, apparently looking for someplace to put them. “And I’m grateful. But I think we both know it won’t work.”

“I don’t believe that.”

Both of them stopped their awkward prevaricating to look at Leon, including Gwaine.

“It’s…emasculating,” Leon went on, cautious and yet strangely determined. “To be sick or injured, and have no control over it. To feel shamed or weak. But it’s only weak if you give into it.”

Merlin sucked in his lower lip and bit down briefly. “I can’t endanger patients. And I don’t mind being a servant. There’s no shame in that.”

“But you’re not a servant,” Leon argued. “You’re a lord. The last dragonlord. It deserves some acknowledgement.”

Merlin’s face creased and wrinkled in a disbelieving sort of laugh. “And you’re going to tell everyone that? Make me a lord on that claim?” The expression on his face, bright with irony and no small amount of bitter humor, made it clear how ludicrous he thought that was. “It’s not even legal for me to be alive here.”

“Arthur will change that,” Leon insisted, looking to said king for support.

But Arthur froze, his mind stuck on his father’s dead face and Guinevere’s dead face, and his sister’s dead face, and countless others dead by magic. He wanted to agree – he did agree, and he’d told Leon as much just a few days ago, but it wouldn’t come. He’d implied it to Merlin too. But just then, faced with it in the light of day in front of his sorcerer and his knights, the words stuck.

Gwaine merely stood there, unusually silent, and appeared to be recategorizing people in his head. So he had known about Merlin’s magic, but none of the rest. He did glance at Arthur, though, and seemed to understand what was going on because he grimaced in some kind of unhappy sympathy.

Arthur’s silence did not seem to surprise Merlin; he merely gave a noncommittal nod and turned away to shuffle things around on a table near the cot to clear a place to set down the bundle of broken pieces. As if he heard the words every time Arthur spoke them, and even believed that Arthur may have meant them, but knew better than to expect anything to come of it. And it hurt, because Arthur understood – he feared the same thing: that when it came down to it, he wouldn’t be able to reverse what his father had done, or overcome the fear and hostility it had bred in his own heart. He’d gone back on that sentiment before, hadn’t he? He’d allowed that he may have been wrong about magic, and then he’d reasserted his father’s claims as if they were his own, repeatedly.

For his part, Leon stared for a moment, visibly made an effort to regroup after that utter failure to reassure, and then breathed out as he turned away with one hand harshly smoothing his beard down into a tuft under his chin. Arthur had never felt the sting of Leon’s disappointment before; it practically smothered him now, frantic like bees under his skin. He looked back to Merlin in time for their eyes to meet, and made an impulse decision. His fingers scrabbled at the chain of the royal pendant around his neck, and then he yanked it off over his head.

Merlin gave him a strange look and backed up a step. “What are you doing?”

Arthur coiled the chain up in his palm and let the pendragon crest hang down over the back of his hand. It was only then that he noticed delicate crescent lines spread in a row across the thicker blade of his palm where Merlin had dug his fingernails in the throes of the fit. They should have stung by now like papercuts, and Arthur frowned when they didn’t. “Do you remember what I told you this morning about my cousin?”

Merlin shook his head, confused, but replied, “Yes.” His forehead rumpled as he looked from Arthur to the pendant and back. “Your father’s nephew.”

“His elder brother’s son,” Arthur confirmed. “The one who should have inherited, whatever anyone else claims. The one my father…” He could remember apple slices enjoyed from atop his father’s shoulders, and the blood red setting sun filtered through clouds of dying smoke and billows of ash kicked up by the evening breeze. But he couldn’t recall what came before – the pyre itself, the crowd, his father’s typical speech. Only a few words stuck, but it was more the tinge of pride to them that stayed through the long years - the thought that whatever he had done, he had made his father proud. Arthur took a shallow breath, the air bottoming out in his throat rather than his lungs, and fluttered his gaze blankly forward. Arthur diverted his eyes to the pendant swinging gently to catch the light showing through cracks in the window shutters, and licked his lips. “Myrddin.”

“What? I’m listening.” Merlin shook his head again, clearly trying to indicate that he didn’t follow what Arthur was getting at.

“No.” Arthur drew the word out like procrastination. He found it interesting that saying the name the Cornish way versus the Breton pronunciation didn’t seem to register with Merlin. “That was his name. My cousin. Myrddin. Or Merlin of Caermarthen, I suppose.” He swallowed and looked up to gauge Merlin’s reaction. “Your great uncle.”

Behind Arthur, either Gwaine or Leon emitted some kind of shocked sputter and then fell silent. In front of him, Merlin blinked, his face blank, and then blinked again. But that was it. Eventually, his head sort of jerked and he looked over Arthur’s shoulder to see what the other men were doing, but it was only a moment before he was staring at Arthur again as if whatever he’d said didn’t make sense.

Arthur waited for some kind of response, but none came, so he prompted, “Merlin?”

Merlin finally shook his head and looked around as if to spot the joke at his expense.

It was Gwaine who finally managed to say something. “You’re heir to the kingdom of Dyfedd.”

Arthur looked back at him. “What?”

“Dyfedd,” Gwaine repeated, and then looked to Leon for support. “It wasn’t a secret. Aurelius had an affair with Adhan, the princess. If he had a bastard, it was hers.”

Leon sort of flopped his head in agreement, obviously a bit stunned. “My father told me of it when I was little. He…said he didn’t want it forgotten.” Leon frowned and shook his head, his eyes falling as he reevaluated the purpose of his father’s words for perhaps the first time.

That seemed to shake Merlin from his stupor. “Dyfedd doesn’t exist anymore.”

Leon cut in to confirm, “Your grandmother would have been the Lady Gwendydd, no?”

Merlin shook his head. “No? I don’t know – my mother didn’t talk about her family. I’m not… I’m _not._ ”

Leon held up a hand as if calming a wild animal. “Did your mother have any siblings by blood? An elder brother, perhaps?”

“No, it was…just her.” Merlin blinked several times and kept looking around as if something sensical might materialize from the air while he looked the other way. “I think. She mentioned her uncles, but not – not siblings.”

Arthur raised a hand to arrest Merlin’s fidgeting away toward the corner and tried to rearrange the order of things in his head, because no, he hadn’t known about the claim to Dyfedd. Arthur hadn’t known that his uncle had a son at all until just the day before; Sir Geofftey must have known this too and neglected to mention it. But why? “You told me that you had a picture of your father in your mind. A man dressed in Roman raiment. It’s what they would have worn – my father and his brother – when they came back across the channel to reclaim the throne from Vortigern.”

With unexpected viciousness, Merlin fixed on Arthur and spat, “That’s not my father! My father was a dragonlord. He never wore that – I never saw him!”

“I know.”

“We’re not blood.”

“No, we’re not.” Arthur shook his head and looked over at the shining cracks between the boards of the shutters. It must have been horribly cold in here in the winter. “Your bloodline is separate from ours. There are just marriage links.” He frowned at his fingers again, at the shine of the pendant chain winking here and there in the light. “Myrddin was a dragonlord too.” In his periphery, Merlin shifted restlessly. “And a seer of some kind. Sir Geoffrey called him the mad prophet of Caermarthen.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Don’t you want to know where your family came from?”

Abruptly, Merlin shouted, “You just told me I have a memory of a father who wasn’t mine!”

“Yes, and an unnaturally intense fear of being burned at the stake.”

“I’m a sorcerer,” Merlin snapped. “I have magic. It’s not an _unnatural_ fear.”

Arthur looked up to find Merlin’s face flushed with something that wasn’t anger, no matter how he sounded. “Perhaps. But you can also read and write in languages that you claim no one ever taught you – languages from across the south sea, from Roman lands. And older languages besides – languages that are dead now, but weren’t then. And you can do complicated magic you haven’t been properly trained to do.” Even he couldn’t quite believe what he was suggesting. “You don’t find that strange?”

Gwaine appeared in Arthur’s periphery. “What exactly are you saying? _He’s_ not your cousin.” He extended a few fingers in Merlin’s direction. “Your cousin is dead.”

“No, I know.” Arthur waved his hand, but he was confusing the whole thing, and since he hadn’t really thought it through yet, it was coming out all wrong.

“You’re saying I’m somebody else,” Merlin bit out. “That I’m not me, or that I’ve got somebody else just swimming around in here with me.” He thumped his chest rather harder than Arthur thought necessary.

“No, I’m saying… I don’t know what I’m saying. But you’re not someone else, Merlin. You’ve always been you.” Arthur watched him fume, impotent with an emotion that still wasn’t anger. “Maybe it’s to do with your magic. Maybe it’s drawing on something, like a reservoir.”

Merlin calmed his breathing into a rhythm that was still too fast with well-deserved agitation. “It was supposed to be him, wasn’t it. Not me. He’s Emrys.”

_Emrys has lost his way._

_It is a prophecy, sire. That he is the one they call Emrys, and that he will stand beside the Once and Future King to usher in a golden age of peace and magic._

Arthur closed his eyes against the echo of the words of the Mother, and the bit of the last conversation that Arthur had with Gaius.

_Much was ruined when Uther enacted the purge. Much was changed that should not have been. Many futures which should have been set, were destroyed._

“It was never me.”

Arthur glanced up, surprised at the streaks crossing his own vision, to find Merlin looking as if he’d been unmade. Arthur reached out on instinct, to do who-knew-what, but Merlin careened off to one side to start flinging things around the room as if he meant to be tidying.

Merlin stopped abruptly and looked at the pair of old trousers in his hands before letting them slide down off his fingers with a soft plop back onto the floor. “Ambrosius.” His gaze turned inward, his face drawing down at the edges.

Arthur nodded, thinking that something must have clicked, maybe some edge of a memory of hearing the name before. “Yes, Aurelius Ambrosius. Or… Aurelianus. It would have been different, depending on the language, I suppose.”

“Emrys,” Merlin replied, but more to himself this time. He half turned toward Arthur, his face troubled. “It’s the same word. They mean the same thing.”

Arthur grabbed him by a sleeve and dragged him back down onto the cot. Surprisingly, Merlin went with little resistance, folding like a puppet with its strings cut. “It doesn’t have to mean anything at all, you know. It’s just fancy.”

Merlin hunched his shoulders and seemed to be counting his breath to slow it. Finally, he nodded.

“Good.” Arthur let him go and sat too with his legs stretched out in front of him to cross at the ankle. “And for what it’s worth, I prefer you to some doddery old man playing mad hermit in the woods.” He pictured Dragoon briefly, with his scraggly-long beard and dirty teeth, and smiled. “Easier to look at, for one.”

As if from miles away, Merlin shook his head. “Is this just a joke to you?”

Arthur sobered. “No. But there’s nothing I can do about any of it, true or not. Is there? I don’t really care _what_ you are, Merlin. I care that you’re here.” He glanced over to find Leon still looking as if he’d been slapped, and Gwaine glaring murder at him. Arthur looked down again and wished that he’d thought to start this in private, because neither of them needed an audience, not even a friendly one, for this. “You’re always here, even when I don’t want you with me because it’s dangerous. Or because I don’t want you to see what I have to do. Does it matter if it’s true? If there’s some part of him in you?”

“I could have never come here,” Merlin said, his voice brittle. “I could have been somebody else – myself – had my own life.” He paused and added, almost too soft to hear, “I could have never met you.”

Arthur winced and grimaced down at the pendant again, at the way the clench of his fingers had pressed divots into the pad of his hand alongside Merlin’s own fingernail marks there. “Is that what you want? To be…not this? Be somebody else?” He would allow it if Merlin asked for it. He’d see to it like payment of the debt that it was for the blood his father spilled – for ruining the Myrddin who was maybe, just maybe, supposed to be here, and foisting that burden on the boy Merlin instead. And it would kill the last better part of Arthur, but he’d do it. He’d send Merlin away to have whatever life he wanted.

“Shouldn’t I?” Merlin asked. And it sounded as if he truly didn’t know.

“No,” Gwaine stepped in. “ _No_. This is who you are. You’re our friend, and you’re the king’s servant, and now you’re Court Physician, and you belong _here_.” He jabbed a finger toward the ground beneath them. “In Camelot. This is where you should be. None of that other shit matters. None of it.”

Leon stepped around, his face stained with the residue of shock, but clear when he said, “And it wouldn’t change your bloodline. You’d still be Dyfedd’s heir, even if you weren’t…supposed to be here like this.”

Again, Merlin seemed compelled to remind them, “Dyfedd doesn’t exist anymore.” He didn’t protest the possible lineage this time though, which meant that maybe some part of him felt its truth too.

“You’re still of noble blood,” Leon replied. “My grandfather’s kingdom is part of Camelot now. We’re not royal anymore, but I’m still a lord.”

“She would have told me,” Merlin insisted, but even Arthur could tell that he was grasping at straws because his face said he didn’t quite believe that his mother would have told him something like this.

“How could she?” Leon asked, sparing Arthur once again. “Uther executed her uncle – a man of his own family. Your bloodline carries magic, and a challenge to the succession besides.”

“Then why did she send me here?” Merlin demanded, finally looking up at them, engaged and unhappy. His eyelids had bruised red, cheeks flushed from whatever this was doing to him, inside, but at least his eyes were still dry. “If it was so _dangerous_ ,” he mocked. “Why here? She had to know someone might find out.” He paused and chuffed out a breath clogged with disdain. “Gaius must have realized. He kept trying to get me to tell him who trained me, and I kept saying no one until he just suddenly stopped. He knew.” He shook his head and chuckled meanly at his lap. “He talked to the dragon too.” A frown pulled down at his face, roughening up the line of his jaw as the muscles moved beneath the shadow of stubble there. “Mum named me after him, like she suspected. They were all lying to me, weren’t they? Everyone I love, they all lied.”

Arthur felt a flash of anger and hurt at that, because he’d said much the same thing once to Merlin. _Is everyone I love lying to me?_ “Well, now you know how I feel.” And then he winced because it was entirely the wrong response, and yet he meant it. Merlin fell still beside him now, and Arthur regretted saying it, but he also wouldn’t take it back if given the chance.

“I had a right to know.” Merlin sucked in a breath and turned his head to look at Arthur as if seeing him too clearly, too close.

Arthur nodded, a small thing, aware of both Gwaine and Leon shifting uneasily in the room with them, claustrophobic with the heaviness of whatever Merlin’s stare carried.

Merlin sniffed to clear the congestion in his nose. “They used me.” His voice came thick with hurt and a north country accent that a decade in Camelot had nearly purged from him.

“Perhaps,” Arthur allowed. “But I don’t think it’s that simple.”

“How is it not?” Merlin demanded, too calm now. Too quiet for it to be real. “Their prophet died, so they made a new one.”

“I can’t believe that,” Arthur insisted. “Your father fell in love with your mother. You came from _that_ , not some conspiracy.”

“You don’t know that,” Merlin pointed out. “I only knew him for a few days, and mum still never talks about him. And Gaius _sent him_ to her.”

“He didn’t even know he had a son.” Arthur shifted, trying to make himself look supportive, or at least more certain. “He couldn’t have been a part of it. Whatever he shared with your mother, that was real.”

That seemed to shut Merlin up, finally, but only for a moment. “You made me promise never to lie to you again.” He stopped fingering the soft fabric of the trousers Arthur had given him, and looked up. The nothing on his face was frightening, but in a remote way. Like it might not have actually been the expression on his face, except that his skin was shaped into that. “Swear it back. Promise me. You owe me that much.”

The request demanded the same gravitas with which Merlin had regarded Arthur’s just that morning, and yet Arthur didn’t give that to it. “I promise,” he said, not even thinking to hesitate.

Merlin lowered his gaze and faced his lap again, smoothing his hands down his thighs to his knees and then back up halfway, pulling at the fabric of the trousers Arthur had gifted to him without telling him. Little more than a whisper, Merlin replied, “Alright.” It wasn’t alright, though.

Arthur shook his head and looked down as well, unable to keep staring at the bow of Merlin’s neck and the old hashed scars visible there. He fingered the royal crest, a dragon raised in gold relief, and wondered for a moment at his father’s hypocrisy, taking a dragon as his symbol and then eradicating them all. From the corner of his eye, he watched Merlin squirm as if trying to figure out what he should be doing now with all of them standing around like salt pillars in his room. Arthur swallowed and unwrapped the pendant chain from around his hand, letting it swing down to smooth out the chinks and bends before he reached to drape it over Merlin’s head.

Merlin flinched, but it seemed more at Arthur’s hands appearing in front of his face without warning, than at being touched or having the pendant chain dropped into place over the back of his neck. He stared down for far too long at the royal crest swinging gently over his knees in Arthur’s wake, and then grasped it to still it before giving Arthur a questioning look.

“You’re family,” Arthur explained.

“You can’t just say that.” Merlin went to remove the pendant. “They’ll never accept it. I’m your servant.”

Arthur pushed his hands back down to prevent him removing the crest. “It doesn’t matter if it’s just because my cousin and your grandmother were half-siblings. It’s still a family link.”

“You can’t tell them that,” Merlin persisted. “You tell them I’m related to – to a sorcerer who challenged your father’s right to rule, and – and you think that’s a good idea? Half of them already hate me, or think I’m slow, or that I have too much influence over you. How long would it take them to cry magic or claim I’ve enchanted you, or that I’m only here to ingratiate myself to you to avenge my family? They’ll kill me no matter what you say just to prove their loyalty, and afterward claim they saved you.”

Arthur shook his head, because no one hated Merlin, surely. How could they? “We can verify your lineage, and I can restore your status. It will be official.”

“I’m still magic! Arthur, you can’t.”

It was Leon who broke them apart from struggling over the pendant, which Arthur hadn’t even realized was growing embarrassing. Arthur brushed them both off and flung himself to his feet, but the only pacing his could do was in a circle that took him past Gwaine, who remained oddly silent, and right back up to Merlin’s side. “I can take whoever I like as blood – it’s my right as king.”

“Even if you don’t explain about my mother’s family, wearing this will just make it look like you’re claiming me as a consort.”

Arthur flared his nostrils and glared at him. “You think it’s that cheap?”

“No,” Merlin breathed, the tilt of his head conciliatory. His fingers tightened over the crest as if he didn’t want to let it go. “But _they_ will.” He ducked his head long enough to slip the chain off and then he held it out to Arthur, his hand shaking just enough to notice and make the chain swing where it dangled like loops of lace between his fingers, or a fall of water uncontainable, slipping free. “I won’t do that to you. I won’t give them a weakness to come after you with. I won’t let them think you’re that kind of a king. Not even – ” He broke off and Arthur finally realized how badly his offer had broken Merlin’s composure - what it had meant to him for Arthur to claim him like family, however impossible, whatever his motives for doing so. Merlin swallowed hard and cleared his throat enough to force out, “Not even if it means I never stop being just your servant. You’re the king, Arthur. The Once and Future King.” He licked his lips, head shaking in denial as if it were beyond his volition. Innate. “That’s more important than anything. _You_ are more important.”

 _You are more important than me._ Arthur swallowed because he didn’t need Merlin to say those last two words in order to make it clear what he meant. He blinked back his initial reaction to that, then dropped his eyes to Merlin’s hand hovering, wavering palm up near Arthur’s heart, offering back the regard of a king to safeguard the image of kingship. To diminish himself for Arthur’s sake.

“Take it back,” Merlin told him, gentle like a plea to save a life.

“No.” Arthur looked up and forced himself to meet Merlin’s beseeching gaze. “Keep it hidden it under your clothes if you must, but I’m not taking it back.” He gave Merlin and the pendant both a look of disgust and turned away to fish the royal appointment out from beneath the disordered bedding. “And take this too.” He turned back in time to catch Merlin clutching the pendant to his chest as if the gesture had effectively been a punch to the gut. “You already admitted you want it, and I announced it at council.” He shoved the scroll up into Merlin’s hands, forcing him to both step back at the force of it, and take the scroll. “I won’t have you embarrass me by declining now. We can make allowances for your – ” Arthur rolled his hand in a more violent gesture than was called for, and mentally tossed away any number of words for the fits just to avoid saying them aloud. “ – your condition. You’ll have an apprentice, page boys to run your errands, and a manservant of your own.”

Merlin finally recovered his wits enough to splutter, “You can’t just give me a manservant. I’m not – ”

“ _You are of noble birth_.” Arthur punctuated each word with a stab of his finger at the ground, fuming too much to look at him as he spoke. His vision had gone strange anyway, tunneled, which he didn’t need Merlin to notice. He kept his eyes trained on the corner of the room instead. “You are heir to a kingdom, and you are my _family_. I will give you anything I like to make your station clear.”

“Dyfedd doesn’t – ”

“ _I am not talking about bloody Dyfedd!_ ”

Arthur was hyperaware of the volume of his own breathing in the otherwise silent room, like a crash of waves overwhelming the scream of a person drowning. He turned around, cognizant of Merlin gaping like a frozen fish, and Leon and Gwaine both trading wary looks, but it was George who actually caught his attention. The servant’s eyes were blown wide, a far cry from the distant professional that Arthur disliked and mocked for being fanatically stuffy, however unfair it was of him.

Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long, frustrated breath. “George. What is it?”

“I – my lords, I thought… The council meeting ran long, and you haven’t eaten. I took the liberty of…bringing a tray.” He glanced over his shoulder, out into the main physician’s quarters, and then looked back, clearly at a loss.

“I see.” Arthur scratched at his scalp, at the perpetually itchy line where the crown often rested. “Whatever you heard, you will repeat it to no one.”

George all but vibrated with fervence. “Of course not, sire.”

Though it was likely unnecessary, Arthur clarified, “On pain of arrest for treason.”

“Yes, sire. I understand, sire. I’ll tell no one.”

Arthur nodded, studying this obsessively obeisant man with more suspicion than he probably deserved. George was as much a fixture in Camelot’s royal household as Merlin, and yet he was always, _always_ , overlooked and mocked for his dedication to what most others (or perhaps only Merlin) considered a thankless role. “Wait in the corridor. I’ll speak with you further once we’re finished here.”

George practically tripped over himself to bow and then retreated in more of a scramble than his usual silent competence.

Leon met Arthur’s gaze once the outer door clunked shut and they seemed to share an understanding. Leon knocked his shoulder into Gwaine to get his attention, and then both of them left, though Gwaine seemed like he had no idea what was going on anymore. Leon would fill him in, and probably downplay the fact that their king had clearly lost whatever marbles he had left after Guinevere’s death.

When Arthur turned back to Merlin, it was to find himself faced with the side of Merlin’s head. The rays of sunlight shining through the cracks in the barred casement set him in relief against the glow, a precarious comma of a man with his head lowered toward his cupped hands, limned in a soft sunny glow, unfocused and contracted around blurred edges. Arthur swallowed and went to him, faintly sick in his stomach at how much a shadow Merlin looked in the light. “This wasn’t how I wanted to have this conversation. I should have waited.”

“No,” Merlin breathed, his head still lowered toward the Pendragon pendant in his hand. “It would have been worse.” He would know, of course. He’d been hiding a secret himself; it must have festered in him like poison the whole time he kept it – the whole time he thought Arthur didn’t know. If anyone could speak to timing of a revelation of such gravity, it was him. “I’m just… I need a moment.”

Arthur could see something else in Merlin’s palm beside the royal crest, now that he was beside Merlin; it took him a moment to recognize his mother’s sigil, and recall the long-ago night he’d given it to Merlin. They’d spoken of dying, and regret. _That’s what you have to remember_ , Merlin had said from the other side of the campfire _. Things never turn out how you expect._ And they hadn’t – not that quest, nor many others.

Arthur steadied himself with a quiet breath, his vision glassy across the room, and risked clasping his hand over the narrow tip of Merlin’s shoulder, a knob hard as rocks and brittle bone beneath his palm. Merlin swayed a bit at the change in pressure, but he didn’t pull away, so Arthur offered, “I know it is no recompense. It’s not meant to be.”

Merlin nodded, but his face was crumpling at the edges, the only parts Arthur could really make out in the shade from the light and the rough stubble blurring Merlin’s jaw. “Arthur, I can’t.”

It was the same thing he’d said before, sitting around a campfire that probably served a poor defense against the dorocha wailing their pain and vengeance and loss through the night. Arthur wondered if Merlin had understood the meaning behind such a gesture even then, when Arthur had made him take his mother’s mark and keep it. In Arthur’s mind, he saw a boy with funny ears and gangly limbs accustomed to laying to sleep on a dirt floor in a house no better than a livestock hut, his only privacy a tattered curtain separating him from his mum. And he tried to remember that however well Merlin got on in Camelot – however well he’d taken to being Arthur’s servant and Gaius’s apprentice – however necessary a fixture Arthur considered him to be, however _right_ it was to look to one side and see him there at the right hand of the king – however powerful his magic made him – Merlin was still a peasant boy from a town of perhaps thirty men and women, in a land where most children did not survive the winters. He was noble. He would have been noble no matter his blood. But he wasn’t raised to _be_ a noble. He was raised to _hide_.

“Look.” Arthur glanced at the side of Merlin’s face, at the twitch at the hinge of his jaw that betrayed the turmoil he was holding back, and then looked away again, eyes blankly searching the featureless wall before him as if it might lay out a map to help him navigate the mess his impulsivity had made of this whole issue. “I think we both know you'd make a terrible king. This isn't a sentimental decision."

Merlin let out a wet snort and Arthur saw him raise his head in his periphery to look at Arthur, finally. "So this is what you consider  _practical_?"

“I’m not asking you to rule.” Arthur tried to stop his fingers squeezing the knob of the shoulder still clutched in his fingers, but his thumb moved in a slow half circle anyway, like soothing a dog after he already had it by the scruff. “I’m not even asking that it be official, or that it be acknowledged.” _Yet._ Maybe. “But it’s a fact that I am the king, and as much as I am surrounded by loyal knights…and warlocks…” His fingers clenched and released on Merlin’s shoulders, a sharper gesture than he intended, to go by Merlin’s wince. “As much as I am protected, it is a fact that most kings do not die old in their beds. You are the only family I have left, by blood or by marriage.” Arthur paused and let his lip wrinkle a bit. “Other than Agravaine’s progeny, that is. And even if they’re not as degenerate as their father, I would never willingly entrust the kingdom to them.”

Merlin swallowed and looked back down at the two tokens resting innocuous and small in his hands. “I don’t want your kingdom.”

Arthur nodded. “I know. And that’s exactly why I trust you with it. I know that you would do anything necessary to keep it in my hands, however much that thought troubles me more.”

Merlin’s outline wavered in the shaft of light through the casement, and then swam back into focus. He still held his hands hovering out before himself, but lower now, nearer his navel as if sinking beneath an imagined horizon. His elbows folded closer to his ribcage as Arthur watched, his stance the polar opposite of Arthur’s open one. Opposites, they were. When Arthur felt lost or uncertain, he flung himself wide and apart like water dashed onto a flat rock. But when Merlin felt the same, he drew in to protect himself, all his pieces held close where no one else could touch them. Arthur watched Merlin closing in on himself like a leaf curling in the heat, turning small and narrow as it browned, and it was a little bit horrible because Arthur knew what he looked like with his eyes burnt gold and his desperation thick at his fingertips.

“Things _will_ be different,” Arthur vowed, low and intense.

After a few moments of Arthur weaving to catch his eye, Merlin finally noticed and looked up, the movement of his head halting, like a man made of sticks and string.

“I swear it, Merlin.” Arthur shook his head and spread his hands out at his sides, helpless, his mouth a rictus of a smile in earnest. “I _swear_.”

Merlin’s face collapsed around the edges and he swung his head away again to hide whatever else it threatened to do. “I stopped hoping for that.”

Arthur swallowed and tried not to react to the knowledge that rather than being a symbol of hope, he had apparently become a beacon for the loss of it. Eventually, he nodded, because even he understood that words were cheap in the face of years of contradictory actions. Nothing he said could mean as much as that anymore. “I’m leaving tomorrow afternoon on a hunt for the Samhain feast. We’ll be gone overnight, at least. I’d like you to come, if you’re able. But not if it will endanger your health so soon after the…that.” He jerked his chin at the door to indicate the fit he had walked in on earlier.

“Whatever you need,” Merlin replied immediately. He looked up, face more normal, and seemed relieved to be leaving the more awkward conversation behind.

“Not as a beater or a servant,” Arthur clarified, more forceful than he probably needed to be, but he could tell from Merlin’s face that’s what he expected to do on a hunt. “You’d come as the physician, and part of the hunting party. George and some others will do the serving; it will be a larger party than usual since we’ll be after big game.”

Merlin blinked and tipped his head, but nodded a moment later.

“Only if you’re well enough,” Arthur pressed.

“I’m fine.” Merlin cleared his throat afterwards though. “I’ll be fine for a hunt,” he specified, which was likely as close as he’d come to admitting more weakness than he already had. “Besides,” he smiled, small but sly. “Someone’s got to look after your royal backside. Can’t have you running off into the woods with nothing but knights to protect you.”

Arthur smiled too, aware of the nervous tick of Merlin’s limbs and the way he angled away, self-protective at the open acknowledgement of the magic he used in Arthur’s service. Arthur wondered how long it would take for them to speak of it openly, in jest or otherwise, and regard it as just some casual thing between them. He found that he liked that thought; it felt like shared secrets, or perhaps no secrets at all – something close and comfortable and warm. He’d felt that once with Guinevere, and he missed it, though he hadn’t known that until he felt it again here, now, with Merlin’s face creasing into easy, private crinkles around his eyes.

“Exactly,” Arthur murmured. He felt his own expression go soft and blur at the edges, staring at that tiny spark of happiness in Merlin’s eyes. Such a simple thing, he thought, to please another like that, with so little effort. It felt like something huge and inflated in Arthur’s chest, and it was hard to breathe around it for a moment. It was only after Merlin’s face contracted with confusion that Arthur realized he had reached out to touch it where it originated on Merlin’s face, Arthur’s fingers stretched over a chasm between them to brush against the soft skin of a cheek swelling pale above a fledgling growth of beard. He felt briefly as if he should apologize, but he didn’t know what for. Touching at all, maybe? “I missed that,” he confessed suddenly. “The way you look at me. You haven’t, in a while.”

Merlin’s brow wrinkled, but the skin around his eyes went slack. “I always look at you.”

He didn’t, but Arthur couldn’t figure out how to articulate it without sounding like an insecure idiot – how it increasingly seemed like when Merlin looked at Arthur, he saw some overlay of Uther instead. How Arthur feared he saw it too, when he looked at himself in the glass. His fingers continued to play over Merlin’s cheek and the side of his nose before he realized what he was doing and shook himself free. Arthur retreated and looked around as if he hadn’t just been caressing his servant’s face like a lover’s and cleared his throat. “I have some business to attend to before supper. George will see to the usual arrangements for the trip; I’ll leave the medicine to you. Be ready in the courtyard by the fourth bell tomorrow.”

“Of course, sire.” Merlin’s voice came out hesitant.

“Good.” Arthur couldn’t manage to look at him, more afraid that he would see some kind of acceptance on Merlin’s features, rather than censure. “Well.” He flapped his hands out near his sides, flickered his eyes unseeing past Merlin’s thin form, and then awkwardly walked out with no further explanation. Arthur shook his head at his own ineptitude as he motioned at George to follow him down the corridor, because really, he may as well have run away from Merlin screaming just then. They emerged out into the sunlight at the edge of the practice field and Arthur paused to watch a few of the lesser knights drill each other around a small space at the far corner while a few maids and retired soldiers watched on.  

George stopped at a respectful distance behind Arthur and markedly did not fidget. “I’ve already prepared most of your things for the hunt, sire.”

Arthur couldn’t stop himself noting that Merlin would have never bothered telling him such a thing; it was entirely unnecessary, and he really didn’t care. He just wanted it done, and to not think about it since that wasn’t his job. “How much did you hear?”

Behind him, George cleared his throat. “Sire, I swear. I will say nothing.”

“I know.” Arthur turned and scanned the immediate surroundings for anyone close enough to overhear their conversation. “But that’s not what I asked you. I need to know what else I need to explain.” He flicked his gaze past the low path wall and hedge, the armory doors, and finally back to George. “I’m sure that you appreciate the delicacy of the matter. You saw me name him my heir, at the very least. Did you hear why?”

George glanced around as well, and then dropped his eyes to Arthur’s chest. “I am aware of my lord Merlin’s noble blood, sire. As no one has acknowledged it publicly, I assume that there is good cause for it to remain secret. It is not my place to question you, sire.”

“And while I appreciate that,” Arthur told him, teeth gritted at the non-answer and irritating subservience, “I didn’t ask for blind assurances of obedience.” Merlin would never have given him that kind of thing, for one. Arthur really needed to stop comparing all others to his former manservant, and finding them lacking for the simple fact that they behaved the way they were supposed to, as if that were a fault. “I asked you how much you already know of this.”

George cast a furtive glance at Arthur’s face and then blinked back toward his chest where Arthur’s royal crest was pointedly _not_ present anymore. “That is all I know, sire.”

Arthur stared hard at his averted face. “You know what magic smells like.”

George swallowed, but maintained his dignity and his frankly alarmingly straight posture. “Yes, sire.”

“Do you know of Merlin’s condition?”

“Yes, sire.”

Arthur flared his nostrils and wondered if pulling teeth weren’t more productive, in general. “Tell me.”

Again, George swallowed, but the veneer seemed ready to crack. “He has…magic. Sire.”

Apparently, George had realized that, but not the condition to which Arthur actually referred. It was just as well – Arthur needed to know about this part too. “Yes, he has. Does that bother you?”

George shifted straighter, if anything, but his shoulders were more tense than usual – raised a bit in defense. He kept his gaze focused past Arthur’s arm, resolute in the correctness of his stance. It made Arthur relax quite a lot when George’s reply came just the slightest bit shaky. “No, sire.”

Arthur nodded, but demanded, “In spite of my laws?” Partly to see if he would offer some defense against his admitted treason for hiding the identity of a sorcerer, but more because he just wanted to know. George was not the sort of fellow Arthur would have equated with subterfuge. He was too stuffy for that.

“My lord Merlin is not a threat, sire. He is loyal to Camelot.”

Arthur tipped his head to one side at the brittle vehemence of that response. “Yes. And yet he breaks the highest law of this land every day, just being here.”

“If you hold a bird down in a bucket of water, it cannot become a fish simply because it does not wish to drown, sire.”

Arthur didn’t move at first, uncertain how to interpret such a brutally poetic notion. Eventually, he gave a halting nod and turned away. “Walk with me.”

“Yes, sire.”

Arthur set an ambling pace down the gravel path that ringed the practice field, George one step behind him. “You have the unfortunate distinction of now being privy to these goings on,” Arthur remarked, voice pitched low to maintain the privacy of their conversation. “It means that I will require more of you as manservant than I otherwise might.”

“I am happy to serve however my lord requires,” George assured him breathlessly.

“Don’t be so eager,” Arthur admonished, put off once again by the fervor of a man like George, excited over the thought of being overworked, like a damn hunting puppy. “I am giving you a choice. Merlin may not understand the concept – he thinks his only purpose in life is to serve my every whim, even to his own detriment – but Merlin’s an idiot sometimes. You should consider more carefully.”

George sucked in a sudden breath, but the immediate agreement that Arthur expected seemed to disperse as George digested what Arthur said.

Thank god; Arthur couldn’t take much more mindless obsequiousness right now. “Merlin’s magic is not what I meant when I referred to his condition. Due to repeated injury in my service, he now suffers periodic convulsive fits. They cause him some distress, and he is concerned that his ability to serve as court physician is diminished because of them. I won’t have that.”

A few beats passed while George turned that over in his head, gravel crunching underfoot in a dissonant rhythm of two mistimed sets of feet. “I am happy to assist as I may, sire.” It was a more measured response this time – less ill-thought obedience.

“Good.” Arthur spared a moment to mentally criticize the way one of his knights held his sword arm as they passed the mock fight nearby. “I realize that you two are not exactly friends.”

George looked down as if that were his own personal failing, his shoulders going tense with his hands clasped properly behind his back. “Merlin is above my station, sire.”

“Merlin would disagree.” Arthur sighed and let the breeze shuffle his hair back from his face. “Obviously, I cannot appoint you to his service. It wouldn’t be proper, as his rank is not known here. I also hesitate to hurt his pride any further than I already have. But he needs someone to consider his care. What I ask will not be simple for you. On the record, you will be my manservant, but between us, I expect that your loyalty would be first to him, not to me. Any duty you perform for me would be secondary, and would only be to maintain appearances that you are my manservant. Merlin will be your primary responsibility.”

It took a moment for George to fully absorb that, and then he asked, “But then who will tend to you, sire?”

“Merlin is reluctant to part with certain of his duties,” Arthur replied sourly, though inwardly relieved that he wouldn’t have to suffer some stranger’s imposition on his person. He had grown woefully accustomed to Merlin’s care, however clumsy or lacking in the usual decorum. Or perhaps because of it. “For now, I am content to indulge him. Your duties with regards to me should be light – clean up my chambers, tend the hearth fire, do the washing, that sort of thing. Tending to Merlin will be a more delicate thing, I warn you. He’ll resist you every step, and he’s given to guarding his privacy for obvious reasons.”

“Of course, sire.” George nodded sagely, as if this whole business were not the slightest bit out of the ordinary. “It is perfectly understandable.”

Arthur nodded, stopped, and rounded back around in a tight enough turn that George had to rear back a step to avoid running into him. “I want to be completely clear on this. When I say that your loyalty is first to him, I mean first even before me. If forced to choose, you will choose him. You will defend him, even against me. For all intents and purposes, you will consider your fealty sworn to Dyfedd, not to Camelot, and to him as heir to both. Do you understand?”

George stared at him like a stunned goat, and then swallowed hard before nodding. “I understand, sire.”

“And are you still so eager to accept this task, knowing that?”

“If that is truly your wish, then yes, sire. I would be honored.”

Arthur examined his face in an unkind way, hard with mistrust and terrified that his judgement of character was just as unreliable now as it had proven to be so many times in the past. “I will kill you if you bring harm to him.”

The bob of George’s throat gave the only indication of his unease. “I would expect no less, sire.”

Arthur drew a deep breath to calm himself, and found that he felt a measure of relief in it. He backed off and watched George’s shoulders loosen as well. “Good. You should speak with the interim physician and educate yourself as to Merlin’s care. He’ll also need assistants and runners – I trust that you can identify suitable candidates for him to consider. Some of the more knowledgeable midwives, for example.”

“I will see to it immediately, sire.”

“Good.” Arthur turned again to scowl at the shoddy footwork of the showoff-knights dancing around at the other end of the green. “Go on, then. You have a lot to do today.” He waved George off, half aware of the man hurrying back into the castle, and then made a face as he grabbed a quarter-stave and headed toward his idiot knights. “Sir Bleoberis! A handmaid could get a killing blow in under your guard. For the last time, drop your bloody elbow!”

* * *

 

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

**The Changeling**

****

_“I brought you your ceremonial sword.”_

_Without looking behind himself at Merlin, Arthur asked, “Is that for me to fall on?” He might have been joking, even._

_“Hopefully not.” There was some kind of mirth in Merlin’s voice, as if the whole situation amused him on some level._

_Arthur merely stood there and breathed, trying not to fall over or – or run away from Camelot entirely. Merlin would come with him if he did, though, so there was that to look forward to. At least he hadn’t eaten much for breakfast, since it was likely to come back up if he had to wait there, thinking about what he was about to do for much longer._

_Merlin took a soft breath behind him and asked, “What’s wrong?”_

_“You wouldn't understand, Merlin. You have no idea what it's like to have a destiny.” Arthur blinked a few times in total disbelief of the fact that this was his life, even though he’d always known, always. He took a breath in the hopes of feeling less lightheaded and added, “You can't escape.” He said it like he had only just realized that, or it had only now been driven home. How embarrassing would it be if he passed out before the doors opened?_

_“Destinies…” Merlin sounded amused again, the idiot. Cheeky, but also maybe apologetic, as if he bloody well knew something that Arthur didn’t. “They are troublesome things.”_

_Arthur shook his head, irritated and sick of being made to look and feel a fool, tr_ _apped in his own life, powerless… Merlin was standing there with that irritating not-quite-smile of his, as if Arthur were being quaint again, or showing his noble naivety or something. Arthur took the sword from his hands and flicked his cloak out of the way so that he could sheath it. God, his hands were shaking._

_“You feel trapped.” Merlin had his head down, but not like a servant’s bow. It looked more like shared secrets. Like something personal. But Merlin couldn’t know; he was nobody. So it couldn’t be personal. He sounded like he knew, though. He sounded just as frustrated as Arthur. Just as reluctantly resigned. “Like your whole life has been planned out for you, and you’ve got no control over – “ He cocked his head in a pointed nod to the way that just rankled like nothing else, and huffed, “ – anything.” The word came out bitten, like irony. “And sometimes,” he continued, his eyes fixed on something in the middle distance, something only he could see. “…you don’t even know if a destiny decided is – “ He blew out a wistful little breath, as if getting this out, getting it off of his chest, were both a relief and an added frustration. “ – really the best thing at all.”_

_Arthur focused on his sword hilt again. He wasn’t looking directly at Merlin, but he could see, in his periphery, Merlin pursing his lips and shaking his head after all of that. Arthur stopped fiddling with his sword, his head coming up in a jerky arc to stare. That was…too close. It was far too close for a servant. For a – a peasant. Because it was right there on Merlin’s face: knowledge. Arthur could swear that Merlin knew – that he knew what this felt like. Himself. Personally. Arthur let his brow wrinkle, ashamed at feeling so desperate, all of a sudden, for confirmation that he wasn’t alone – that Merlin really did know. That he shared this…terrible feeling of being trapped inside a gilded cage, a slave to a crown he never asked for, doomed to never be free to pursue his own happiness. Shackled the way commoners never were. He flicked his eyes down Merlin’s deceptively bland exterior and then reset his feet to demand, “How come you’re so knowledgeable?”_

_“Hmm?” Merlin still wore that look, like he knew something Arthur didn’t. Like what he had just said was truer than it could have possibly been. Secrets never told. Some Merlin hidden beneath his clumsy, annoying manservant. “Oh, I read a book.”_

_Arthur scoffed, his lip curling as he balked, because no. That wasn’t something one reads in a book, and Merlin had that look on like what he’d said was some kind of inside joke that he expected to watch glide right over Arthur’s head. Arthur slid his eyes, and then his face away, head cocked in contemplation because Merlin was making shifty eyes over that tiny smirk of his. Still amused. Still finding something about this mess funny. “What would this book tell you? Should I marry her?” He looked back up to see what Merlin’s face was doing now, unwilling to give him any sort of privacy to hide this unlikely kinship._

_Merlin straightened a bit and let his eyes unfocus off to one side. He seemed to think about it, to have some kind of sagely answer to give, but then he said, “It’s not really my place to say, si –”_

_“I’m asking you,” Arthur interrupted, forcing his temper down, his impatience… Forcing his voice to be soft and steady because he didn’t think that he could afford to scare Merlin off of this, or annoy him until he clammed up. “It’s your job to answer.”_

_Merlin peered up at Arthur from a slightly downturned face, his voice rapid when he replied, “If you really want to know what I think?” Truly curious, that._

_Arthur bobbed his head in affirmation._

_Rather than reply right away, Merlin remained still for another heartbeat, his mouth slightly open as if ready o drop words all over the floor – as if he could barely restrain himself, but the look in his eye, peering askance at Arthur, spoke of something else. Not quite cunning, not quite coy. He was measuring_ something _about Arthur before he decided whether or not to speak. Arthur tried to keep his face open and encouraging, because he wanted to know how Merlin would answer – how_ this _Merlin, the strangely prescient one, would advise him._

 _Finally, Merlin ticked his head to the other side and quirked an eyebrow as if he were going all in on a gamble and couldn’t entirely believe he was about to do so. “I think you’re mad.” He said it with conviction, swiveling to more fully face Arthur, and that familiar insolence invaded both his voice and his posture, though it sounded clipped at the edges, and his tone wasn’t entirely controlled as he spoke. It wavered as if he wanted to shout, but couldn’t. “I think you’re_ all _mad. People should marry for love.” All of that sass and attitude that Arthur both loved and hated rushed to the forefront. It had the unlikely effect of cementing Arthur’s attention though, because Merlin was insolent as a rule, not…this. Angry and borderline disrespectful, as if he were delivering a lecture to a child. As if he were disappointed that he had to say it at all. “Not convenience. And if Uther thinks an unhappy king makes for a stronger kingdom, then he’s wrong, because you may be destined to rule Camelot, but you have a choice.” He bobbed his eyebrows at Arthur as if to demand how Arthur could not know this. Something in Arthur’s face must have met with his approval, because he nodded, just a tiny thing, and finished, “As to how you do it.”_

* * *

Arthur swung his already cracked quarter stave at a lone straw man propped up haphazardly in front of the armory door, and reveled in the swift snap of wood. Half of the staff spun through the air over his head to scatter the gaggle of squires collected like geese by the weapons racks as a plume of straw and stuffing exploded in his own face. It was ridiculously, highly satisfying. And he hated how the violence of it soothed him. Before he could give himself a chance to indulge again, Arthur dropped the now useless stick left to him and fought to breathe through his temper as he stalked past the armory and into the castle. How did they expect to survive, fighting like amateur bandits – the _arrogance_! And to imply that Arthur was the one with the problem – that he needed to unwind and _get laid_? What did that have to do with sword stance? Bleoberis was a damn toad; Arthur would pair him with Percival from now on in training. Let him get his backside handed to him by a common tradesman, and then see how much _getting laid_ mattered in a battle situation.

Of course, it didn’t help that the whole conversation had started with Bleoberis implying that his sister would be a perfect match for Arthur. Never mind that she was a second daughter from a second-rate bit of land with no prospects or wealth of her own, no lands, nothing to tempt a king –

Arthur stopped cold in the corridor and shut his eyes, his fists clenching hard enough to make his knuckles ache. It wasn’t the girl’s fault that she had no riches to bring to a marriage. It was also Uther’s voice screaming through Arthur’s head in that moment that a king must make an advantageous marriage, and that wasn’t the girl’s fault either. Arthur sucked in a snarling sort of deep breath and blew it too hard out through his teeth. Guinevere had brought nothing but her good nature to their marriage, and he wouldn’t have had it any other way. It wasn’t station that bothered him now, but the comment from one of the ladies observing them that Arthur had surely mourned long enough now to avoid any offense to his dead queen.

“You’re allowed to be happy.”

Arthur dropped the hand he had raised to dig at his brow and looked up. “How dare you – ” Then he blinked, turned around, and found an empty corridor behind him too. Arthur quelled the feinting hollow in his chest and forced himself not to hold his breath as he turned in a full circle to confirm that no one else was there. For another dozen heartbeats, he held himself perfectly still as if he were hunting (without Merlin along to crash around scaring everything off for a mile). No footsteps, no breathing, no swish of a dress or pat-pat of bare feet made its way to his ears in the silence. Nothing. But he would swear that what he heard was a woman’s voice, soft and aching. Barely there.

It was mad. Utterly beyond the pale, but Arthur felt a soft shiver pass over the surface of his skin, down one arm to drip off of his fingers, and then nothing. Just a draft, and a lone voice carried by chance through stone and distance. He realized with a start that he had stopped breathing, and gasped as his vision blurred from the lack of air. Knowing how pitiful he was for even considering it, Arthur bit his lip and then whispered, “Guinevere?”

A burst of laughter made Arthur jump, and then he cursed his own stupid heart. The laundry room was down at the other end of the corridor, and if he’d heard anything, it was just one of the washing maids’ voices carrying clear through the stillness. Arthur sighed and let his eyes slip briefly shut before turning to find his way back to the main part of the castle, his temper gone like a whiff of flowers on the wind. He didn’t have time for fancy any more than he did for anger. There were too many tasks to complete before the feast tonight honoring Merlin’s appointment as Court Physician.

Arthur found Leon in the privy council chamber, tallying grain reports. There were times Arthur thanked god for Leon’s ridiculous attention to mundane details, because whenever Arthur tried to do that, he came up with three different sets of numbers and a splitting headache. Leon, on the other hand, wore a satisfied smile and seemed to regard arithmetic as some kind of cathartic pastime, like a nice hot bath that never grew cold. A lot like the baths Merlin drew for him, actually. Because he really did have no sense of self preservation, the idiot. Ever-hot baths weren’t even the most obvious of his tells.

Leon glanced up and his happy little smile grew to show teeth. “Sire! You seem calmer.”

“Bleoberis is terrible with a sword. He’s going to get himself killed – a bandit could take him out in two strokes.”

Leon chuckled and offered a nod in response. “Shall I go over the grain reports with you?”

Arthur perched himself on the edge of the table and crossed his arms, absently peering about the rest of the mostly empty room. He chose to ignore the grain reports entirely and merely said, “So we’re just not going to talk about it, then?”

Leon skipped a beat, and then straightened from his bend over the report-littered table. “Was there something you wished to clarify?”

“No,” Arthur shook his head, brows raised in a kind of uncertainty. “I just…expected more opposition on the matter. I mean, I named him heir to the throne in front of two knights and a servant. It’s kind of official now.”

“Yes…?” Leon drew the single syllable out to a point just shy of disrespectful. “He _is_ next in line to the throne, unless you reverse your disinheritance of Agravaine’s sons.”

Arthur replied with an absent nod and frowned down past his own arms crossed over his chest like a breastplate. “He’s right, though. They’ll never accept it,” he said, meaning the council in particular, but also the noble classes in general. “Naming commoners to the knighthood is one thing. Elevating a blacksmith’s daughter to the queenship, fine. But naming my manservant heir to the throne?”

“He’s not just your manservant, though,” Leon pointed out reasonably. “He _is_ heir. He’s a member of the royal family through the marriage alliances of his mother’s family, and through Aurelius’ indiscretions with a princess of the royal house of Dyfedd. There is precedence and legal justification to naming him heir.”

“Yes,” Arthur allowed, but it tasted sour in his mouth.

Leon hesitated, then offered, “Would you feel better if I disagreed with you?”

Arthur narrowed his eyes at Leon and let his nostrils flair. “It annoys me sometimes that you can be so eminently reasonable.”

Leon evidently took that as a compliment because his eyes crinkled and his facial hair moved around to obscure the upturn of his mouth. He sobered quickly, though. “It will cause unrest when it gets out.” When, not if. “Myrddin isn’t forgotten in Camelot. He’s not spoken of, but he’s not been erased either. Everyone will know he was magic, and that he was executed for it. They’ll know that his claim to the throne could have challenged Uther’s. That could work both for and against you, really; those sympathetic to magic will see Merlin as some kind of a savior – the vindication of his murdered great uncle, and a chance for a Camelot that they believe should have come to pass. Those who aren’t sympathetic, who agreed with your father, will see him as a threat to Camelot, and to you.”

That was at least more honest than Leon’s typical supportive optimism. Arthur sighed. “I’ve put him in an untenable position, haven’t I.”

Leon’s brows bobbed up once, but that was all he would grant. “Would you rather continue denying him his heritage altogether?”

“I’d rather see him happy with his life,” Arthur said without thinking. “And he’s not, right now.”

Leon blinked and leaned back for a moment, straightening and turning away from his pile of dull reports. “Not everyone needs prestige for that.”

Arthur glanced at him, long enough to see the confusion in his stance, and then pushed himself off of the table to pace slowly toward the other end of the room. “It’s not material yet, anyway. Merlin can’t confirm it; his mother never told him the names of his forebears. He doesn’t know for certain that his lineage is what we think it is.”

“Then we shall have to make certain.” Leon approached him but stayed at a respectable distance from his king. “If you tell me where to find the Lady Hunith, I will go and escort her back to Camelot. Then we can have the truth from the source.”

Arthur stared morosely at a wall tapestry – dragons wheeling in the sky above the highest turrets of Camelot. “She may have had good sense in leaving all of this behind,” Arthur pointed out. “In raising Merlin to be his own free man.”

“But she hasn’t,” Leon countered gently. “She’s lied to him, hidden his roots from him, and then she sent him here, where he could have been killed.”

“I cannot believe it to be malicious,” Arthur replied, shaking his head. “She loves her son – I’ve seen them together.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Leon said. “But the fact remains: she sent him to Camelot, knowing the danger. We have to ask why a mother would do that to her magical child.”

Arthur’s eyes roved unseeing over the tapestry until it caught on the figure of a man with his hands held up toward the dragon. He hadn’t thought too deeply about the manner in which his father had betrayed Merlin’s – of the cruelty inherent in it. To extend the hand of peace to a man so good, so guileless that he _believed it_ and accepted. And then to use that man – force him to unwittingly betray his own kin – and afterwards, pursue him through enemy kingdoms like a madman, drive him from those he loved, deny him his son, and leave him to rot alone in a dank, musty cave at the edge of the wilds. And for what? “Because Camelot is ruthless,” Arthur replied, calm and empty at the thought. “Because my father would have killed him, if need be. And Merlin’s power frightened her.” Arthur skewed his gaze over to Leon. “The way it frightens Merlin himself.”

Leon studied Arthur for a moment too long, impolite simply in its duration, and then asked, “And does it frighten you, sire?”

Arthur swallowed, the bob of his throat a hard click against his trachea, and whispered, “Yes. His power frightens me. But I’m not afraid of _him_.”

“And that,” Leon acknowledged, so like the teacher of battle drills he had once been for a much younger, unformed Arthur, “is an important distinction, sire.”

Arthur looked back for a moment, and then pressed his lips into a dissatisfied line. “If you leave at first light and ride steady, you can reach Ealdor by nightfall tomorrow. It’s just beyond the ridge of Essetir, in the vale on the other side of the river. You can see it clearly from our own borders.”

Leon smiled as if Arthur had passed some sort of test of character. “Then I shall ride at first light, sire.”

As Leon started to turn away, Arthur snapped out a hand to grasp him by the bicep. “I won’t have her forced to come here.”

Leon turned back, attentive. “Of course not, sire. She is, after all, a queen.”

 _Suspected_ , Arthur thought. But all he said was, “Yes, assuming that her mother no longer lives, which is likely. But she gave that up, and has dwelt in poverty for most of her life. I have to respect that she may have good reasons for that. She may even be happy as she is. You will tell her beforehand what we want her for, and give her the option to refuse.”

Leon gave a small bow in concession. “I will not interfere with the queen’s will.”

Arthur released him and stepped back. “I hardly need stress the confidential nature of this errand.”

“I understand what is at stake, sire.”

“Good.” Arthur glanced away, and then said, “I plan to have a small dinner in the dining hall tonight, in honor of Merlin’s appointment. He would be glad to see you there.”

At this, Leon finally grinned. “I wouldn’t miss it.” Then he bowed, gathered his records, and left with no further delay to prepare for his upcoming journey.

* * *

_“Mordred saved my life,” Arthur pointed out. “What greater debt could there be?” He descended into a gully and stepped over several branches._

_“The debt to your people,” Merlin replied, walking too close behind him. “To your destiny.”_

_“You almost sound as if you care.” Arthur peered around on instinct, looking for threats or anything out of place. Merlin’s attitude about all of this troubled him; it wasn’t like his servant to be so bitter. So cold. Just getting him to agree to this excursion back out to the cave of the Disir had been a challenge in patience._

_“I do care.”_

_Could have fooled him. In truth, Arthur was under no illusion that he could force anything from Merlin. And it made him wonder why on earth Merlin had come at all when he seemed so against it._

_Merlin dogged his footsteps, just a hair away from treading on Arthur’s ankles. “About who you are, Arthur.” He sounded winded from their hike through rough forest. Or maybe it was something less benign. “Who you are destined to become.”_

_“If it's fated, it doesn’t matter what I do, does it?” Arthur snapped, annoyed now. He was tired of hearing this time and again – this destiny rubbish from his idiot secret sorcerer. “It'll still happen.”_

_“There is a difference between fate and destiny.”_

_Rounding on Merlin, he managed to speak over the tail end of Merlin’s assertion. “You think too much, Merlin.” He watched the insubordinance rise to twitch in Merlin’s face like a shadow of contempt, and then fade again. When had he grown so bitter? He used to speak of Arthur and destiny as if it were glowing right in front of him. His faith used to be more than just…habit. Like a tired old chore. As if his belief in Arthur were a necessary inconvenience. As if he had no choice but to have faith in his king, and resented that fact more often than not._

* * *

It was probably entirely unnecessary for Arthur to seek out Sir Geoffrey as soon as he parted from Leon, but it ate at him, and while he relished the thought of Geoffrey finding out that Arthur knew in some other more shocking manner – maybe an announcement at court, or just some vague, offhand comment and a pointedly dark look over a state dinner – Arthur was tired of the subterfuge and intrigue of court. It was exhaustion that drove him to just get this over with now, and let them both know where they stood with the other. Geoffrey was the official court historian and records keeper; Arthur needed them aligned, and he needed the secrecy of his father’s reign to end once and for all.

Sir Geoffrey was not in his library as usual. Arthur eventually found him in the vaults taking inventory of those objects and treasures which remained locked away for various reasons, either for their value, their significance to the crown, or their magical properties. Of course, this was also within the purview of Geoffrey’s role, so it was not unusual for him to verify the contents at regular intervals. Arthur watched him counting things for a while, ticking off various items here and there in a ledger, oblivious to the intent gaze of his king behind him. Eventually, Arthur grew bored with this and pulled the vault door closed to allow them privacy for the conversation that Arthur needed to have.

Sir Geoffrey jumped at the soft boom of the large wooden door as it thumped and echoed shut. “Sire!”

Arthur nodded and ambled forward, loose as if he were baiting an opponent on the field. He kept his gaze directed to the left, at the various glittery objects kept behind bars down here like prisoners of a mad king’s greed. “I heard an interesting bit of information today.”

Geoffrey went still, and Arthur could see clearly for once that he used to be a knight. “Is it something I can assist you with, sire?”

“I assume that you are familiar with the old court at Dyfedd.”

It was subtle, but there: the hesitation. “Yes, sire. As I’m sure your highness is aware, the last king of Dyfedd was defeated by your father in the battles waged by the sons and clansmen of Hengist the Saxon. He did not survive, but many of the royal court were given clemency to live out their lives in the court of Camelot.”

Arthur nodded. “Is that, then, how my cousin, the so-called mad prophet, came to be here at the start of my father’s reign? With his mother the princess Adhan, and the rest of his family?”

Geoffrey glanced around and took a step back until he could lean for support against an old cedar chest. “Adhan was queen by then. She was permitted to retain her rank, though her lands and rule passed to Camelot.”

“I see that it is not ignorance which kept this information from me.” Arthur clenched his hands and fought to remain calm. “Perhaps then, Sir Geoffrey, you would like to explain why I had to learn from two of my knights like some sordid tavern rumor that I have kept as my manservant, for over _ten years_ – “ Arthur bit his tongue and lowered his voice again; he didn’t want to attract the attention of any guards to eavesdrop on this conversation. More modulated, Arthur continued, “ – for ten years, a boy who is not only of noble blood, but _royal_?”

“Your father would have killed him.”

Arthur paused a moment, and then had to ask, “And am I so like him that you would think the same of me?”

Geoffrey seemed bent in that moment, and older than his years alone might indicate. “Forgive me, sire. But your change of heart has been quite recent. You have killed many who may not have deserved it.”

Arthur let his head slide to one side, and his gaze hovered somewhere low toward the floor. Finally, he simply said, “Yes.”

“The boy deserved a chance at a normal life. To see him killed for nothing more than paranoia over the magic that flowed in that family…if he had none of it himself, as I had always thought…it would have been unjust.”

“Then it’s true. His heritage.” Arthur shook his head, but not to negate any words spoken here. “You know this for a fact? You would swear to it?”

Geoffrey took a breath long enough to expand his ribcage, but for all of the air he took in, it still sounded shallow in his body. “The Lady Gwendydd is his grandmother. I knew her quite well, and Bleise was a brother in arms, for all that he was not a knight. I will admit, I pretended ignorance to protect their grandchild. He knew nothing of where he came from, and it seemed little harm to allow him his life. But yes; the boy…” He shook his head then and corrected, “Not a boy anymore. Merlin. He is directly descended of Dyfedd, and the last born of its blood. He is its heir.”

The air seemed stale and close, unmoving through the corridors amongst the detritus of years of war spoils in the vaults. Arthur felt lighter for a moment – vindicated, though it seemed a terrible secret on its surface. “You have lied to me,” he felt compelled to point out. “To my face, directly and with intent to deceive.”

To his credit, Geoffrey made no effort to lessen the offense with excuses. “Yes, sire. I have.”

Arthur merely nodded. He could make an issue of it, and as king he probably should, but the prospect alone exhausted him. He had grown sadly accustomed to being lied to; what was once more in the grand scheme of things? And he agreed on one point at least; Merlin did deserve a chance to live his life. His birth, his blood, was no fault of his. And Arthur himself would have been a poorer man without the challenge that Merlin laid at his feet every day to be better. To be that shining king of a golden age that he used to talk about.

Finally, Arthur turned back to regard Geoffrey’s bowed back, and the top of his lowered head. “Thank you, Sir Geoffrey. For both the lies and the truth.”

Sir Geoffrey looked up at that, his face oddly devoid of expression.

“I’ll leave you to carry on with your work.” Arthur took a breath and turned away, but not quickly enough to miss the surprise and relief on Geoffrey’s face, or the way it seemed to break whatever thin veneer of composure he had managed to affect. When Arthur reached the door, he glanced back simply as a side effect of turning to slip through the heavy door. Geoffrey had sagged awkwardly on the cedar chest, his face in one hand, shoulders heaving in silence as he breathed. There was no need for Arthur to threaten him, should he ever lie or mislead again.

* * *

_Arthur cast a frantic look around the ring of knights, of common people – everyone – materializing from the trees around the sword in the stone, then whirled on Merlin. He tried for incensed but what came out in his voice unfortunately tended more toward panic. “What the hell are you playing at?”_

_“I’m proving that you’re their leader and their king.”_

_He wanted so badly to just smack that smug look right off of Merlin’s face, the bloody sorcerer. “That sword is stuck fast in solid stone.” Did Merlin take him for a fool? Was this a trick? Really? After all of this time, he was going to betray Arthur now? Wasn’t he already all but ruined?_

_Merlin just looked at him, his expression full of…full of faith and love for his king. Surety. “And you're going to pull it out.”_

_“Merlin, it's impossible.” This had to be a trick. What better way to humiliate him? Arthur had just lamented the night before how he misjudged everyone, how he all but allowed them all to deceive him, and here was a sorcerer, a liar of a man Arthur thought was on his side, against all odds, setting him up for failure._

_“Arthur, you're the true king of Camelot.”_

_Oh god, he wasn’t kidding. Merlin was…serious. This was genuine – he actually expected Arthur to do it, and succeed. It was terrifying, the complete lack of doubt on his face. Arthur glanced back at the stone, then past it to the crowd of people arrayed in sections of concentric rings all around them. He rounded on Merlin again because that was easier than looking at a hundred people all wearing the same kind of faith that Merlin had for him. “Do you want me to look like a fool?”_

_“No, I'm going to make you see that Tristan's wrong; you aren't just anyone. You are special. You and you alone can draw out that sword.”_

_He meant that. Every word. Merlin was a shit liar; Arthur knew when he was doing it. And right now, he wasn’t. He was being weird and intense and just…spouting off rubbish like any sorcerer Arthur had ever met, but he was so earnest about it. Arthur looked at the sword stuck into the stone. It was a beautiful sword. It was. But seriously, how could Merlin’s ridiculous “legend” be true? Arthur would have heard of it. Or his father would have found and destroyed the thing, magical as it was. He shouldn’t do this. Magic…he saw what it did to Morgana. How it warped and ruined her. But Merlin was magic too, and Merlin… Arthur had misjudged so much in his life, but Merlin never wavered. He never changed, he never…corrupted. Magic was dangerous. It had to be. But Merlin was not. Were there other magics out there like him? Benign ones? Something…pure in the midst of all of the rot?_

_Arthur glanced around at the trees, aware that he was looking for an excuse now not to do it – not to touch the magic sword. His father would be appalled. Arthur himself couldn’t believe that he was going to do this. But Merlin had a way about him. He wasn’t like other magic. Arthur wished he knew why a sorcerer would ever stand beside him. He wished he could accuse Merlin of spying for Morgana, of manipulating and betraying him. But he couldn’t. Nothing Merlin did spoke of subterfuge. He was just loyal. Stupid-loyal, the way he had always been._

_The old worn sword hilt caught for a moment in Arthur’s belt as he drew it out and awkwardly thrust it into the ground near Merlin’s feet. He looked at Merlin, and he wanted to say something about the secret between them, about the magic. But it wasn’t the time. “You better be right about this.”_

_Merlin merely looked pleased, his mouth curving in a wry, knowing line. Arthur put his back to his utterly mad sorcerer and approached the stone on hesitant feet. It felt like watching magic at his father’s deathbed, too close. Too immediate. Too easy to touch. He contemplated whether this temptation were part of the corruption of magic, or part of the wonder. It seemed innocent enough, that sword. Rich and shining, gilt with runes and gold braid. Arthur pursed his lips and flickered his gaze over the still crowd, waiting as if holding their breath. It made him uncomfortable, how no one else seemed to see the peril of what was in front of him._

_Arthur licked his lips and swung both hands to the hilt, the leather of his gloves creaking as he adjusted his grip and set his feet, still not sure that he should be doing this – touching it, a magical relic. It didn’t feel magical, though. It felt like any other sword, hilt cool from the earlier morning dew. And it only shone in the sunlight. He clenched his jaw with a deep breath and pulled, but the sword merely shook from the strain of Arthur’s muscles. It wouldn’t budge._

_“You have to believe, Arthur.”_

* * *

Arthur started at the creak of his chamber door hinges and accidentally dislodged George’s fingers from plucking at his stubborn jacket buttons. “Merlin. I should make some comment about knocking, but it gets tired after ten years.”

Merlin tipped his chin and gave Arthur a look from the corner of his eyes as if to say that he should know better by now. “Why? Are you doing things in here that you shouldn’t?”

Against his will, Arthur barked out a laugh. “Shut up, Merlin. George, go on about your business. Merlin can help me with the rest of this.”

George bowed and gathered up a bundle of bedding before also bowing to Merlin and making a silent exit. Merlin paused halfway across the room as soon as George bent in the middle at him. Once the door closed over the other servant, he tilted his head and then swiveled to peer suspiciously at Arthur. “What did you do?”

Arthur made his eyes wider, like an innocent puppy, he hoped. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Help me off with this.” He gave his collar a pointed tug. “It’s too tight.”

“Yes, well if you would – ”

“If you value your continued existence, you will think very carefully about what you say next.”

Merlin merely smirked at the buttons as he undid them. “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of mentioning your circumference again, sire.”

Arthur’s eyes narrowed of their own accord, but since the damn fabric finally parted ways with his neck, he let it go. “You know, it just occurred to me. All these years I’ve been harping on you about proper address and titles, and as it turns out, you’ve been completely within your rights to call me by name this whole time.”

Merlin’s hands slowed as he drew the jacket from Arthur’s arms, but he recovered a moment later, fingers picking imaginary lint from the sleeves as he turned to put it back in the wardrobe. He made some kind of sound that Arthur assumed was supposed to be a laugh, but it sounded strained. “I thought you didn’t like this jacket.”

“I don’t,” Arthur confirmed, frowning at Merlin’s back and the way it moved under his clothes as he arranged the offensive garment back onto a hanger. “George hasn’t learned my preferences yet.”

“Ah.” Merlin paused to regard the jacket, bit the inside of his cheek, and then slotted it into place on the rod with the rest of Arthur’s formal jackets. “I’ll, um. Fill him in, then.” When he came back, he was holding a fresh tunic rather than a properly fitted jacket. “Take that one off, then.”

“This one’s already clean,” Arthur told him.

“Yeah, but it’s the itchy one. Come on.” Merlin gestured at him with the new tunic. “Off.”

Arthur blinked down at himself before he went ahead and tugged the laces loose so that he could slip it off over his head. “Right.” He handed it over, and probably studied Merlin a bit too intently as he tossed it aside and held the new tunic up for Arthur to slip his arms through. After Arthur ducked his head through the collar, he stopped Merlin from doing up the laces and instead, pressed his open palm to Merlin’s chest, over his sternum. Merlin stilled like the aftermath of a knee jerk reflex and seemed to breathe deliberately while Arthur felt around the edges of the royal crest concealed underneath the thick brocade of his robe. He gave Merlin an apologetic smile after and shifted his focus. “This was Gaius’s robe, wasn’t it?”

Merlin cleared his throat and stepped back to compulsively smooth the brushed olive-hued wool down his ribcage. “George took a few of his council robes to alter so they fit me. The nicer ones, anyway. He didn’t wear this one much.” His fingers gentled and traced some of the jacquard patterned stitching along the centerline of his chest.

“Looks good on you. Better than your drab brown leather jacket thing.” Arthur stepped around him and tugged at the looser fabric near Merlin’s hips to reveal the long cuts splitting the skirt of the surcoat into four cardinal sections. “Ah, and you can ride in it. That’s good.” He realized what he was doing only because Merlin stopped breathing entirely that time and twisted his head to look past his shoulder at Arthur. “Um.” Arthur removed his hand and blinked awkwardly down at his own fingers while he collected himself. “Sorry.”

Merlin swallowed and also faced away for a moment before turning to do up Arthur’s tunic laces. It seemed like he wanted to suck at his lower lip or bite the inside of it, but didn’t want to give himself away by doing it.

Just to try and dispel the sudden tension bleeding out between them like a severed artery, Arthur remarked, “George really is frightfully efficient.”

Merlin started to say something but it fizzled out in his throat somewhere. He rubbed at his nose with the almost-too-long cuff of his sleeve, and then spun away to find a suitable jacket, his eyes lowered where Arthur couldn’t see to read the expression in them.

Arthur sucked a breath deep into his chest, puffed out his cheeks, and then sighed. “Look, I know that this isn’t exactly a festive occasion. You wouldn’t be court physician if Gaius weren’t…” He stopped himself defining that because he really didn’t know if it would be insensitive or not.

“Dead?” Merlin approached him with a more well-worn jacket, wearing a false veneer of nonchalance. “Here.” He held the jacket up and open for Arthur.

 Arthur studied the garment for longer than it deserved, and then reached up to cover Merlin’s fingers on the jacket’s empty shoulders. He pushed them toward the floor so that he could see the shadows in Merlin’s downturned face. “He would be proud of you.”

Merlin’s jaw went hard for a moment, and then he nodded, but he didn’t look up. “I know.”

“And, um.” Arthur prevaricated, breathing harder than the situation justified. “Guinevere too. She would have….” Arthur squeezed his eyes shut for a moment to force back the upwell that threatened to stop him finishing. After swallowing something that felt like wads of carded wool in his throat, and then clearing it, Arthur continued, “She would have been happy for you. Sad as well, about Gaius, but she always wanted…good things…for you. She would have been pr – ”

“Don’t.”

“ – oud of you.” Arthur ticked, confused. “Don’t?” He dropped his gaze to his now empty hands, fingers curling where Merlin had wrenched his own back out of Arthur’s grasp. The jacket appeared in front of his face again, held open, and Arthur wondered if it were possible for someone to hold a jacket aggressively. Rather than risk forcing a confrontation, Arthur elected to speak to the jacket instead of to Merlin directly. “Look, I know I’ve been…angry, lately. When anyone mentions her.”

“ _Please_ don’t.” Merlin all but shoved the jacket at Arthur’s chest, and then tried to get behind him as if he could just slip it onto Arthur without him realizing.

Arthur allowed it and shrugged until the jacket sat comfortably across his shoulders. Merlin came around front of him again, and as he plucked the fiddly buttons through their proper holes, Arthur murmured, “Thanks.”

“Oh,” Merlin drawled, the levity thin and forced. “You’re taking this alleged nobility thing seriously if you’re thanking me now.”

As he turned away, Arthur scoffed under his breath. “It’s not only that. I should have been saying it before now.”

“Manners were never your strong point.” Merlin rummaged about the shelf in the wardrobe and pulled down a long surcoat-like vest. It was one of Arthur’s older coats – one that his father had given him – supple dark brown leather that reached from shoulders to ankles. Merlin turned around, still inspecting the vest for damage, and said, “So I’m sure you’ll understand if I find it a bit disingenuous.” He slowed his steps and then leaned onto his back foot with a long breath. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t – ”

Arthur came forward to meet him, and shook his head when Merlin tried to hold out the vest. When Merlin didn’t make any attempt to finish his broken sentence, Arthur inhaled carefully. “I haven’t been a very good friend. To you.”

Merlin bit his lip and swallowed at the leather bundled in his hands. “We’ll be late to the dining hall.” He shook out the vest and held it open for Arthur. “Sire?”

Arthur stepped closer and ignored the vest, causing Merlin to fold his arms in to hold the vest to his torso. “Guinevere used to lecture me for being insensitive.” He let the smile surface for a moment, a memory painted in sepia tones in his mind of a small cottage and a warm fire, and the heat of Guinevere’s frustration with him as she yelled at him for taking her bed without even thinking of her circumstances. When he blinked away the feeling of her, Arthur caught Merlin forcing the lines of his own face smooth again, but not from a happy memory. He looked pained at the mention of her name again. “You said that you hear her voice,” Arthur ventured, and Merlin flinched back again. “What does she say?”

“It’s not important.” Merlin flapped the leather vest to hang smooth again and shoved it at Arthur as if he could press it through his skin and onto him that way. “Come on – we’ll be late.”

“We’ve plenty of time,” Arthur countered, his brows drawing into a furrow. It occurred to him that however much he himself prickled and shouted at the mention of his deceased wife’s name, Merlin hardly mentioned her either. “Why can’t you talk about her?”

“I’ve tried – you don’t want to hear it. Put your arms up.” He tried to angle around behind Arthur again.

“No, you haven’t.” Arthur rotated to keep them facing each other, even if Merlin wouldn’t exactly look at the man right in front of him. “You cut it off too, every time someone does more than just mention her in passing.” They danced around in a circle for a moment before Merlin gave up and scrubbed his sleeve across his forehead, the vest still dangling from his fists. Arthur shook his head, worried and confused. “What does she say to you?”

Merlin barred his teeth from under the forearm blocking his face, then sniffed in a huge breath as if to fortify himself. He held the vest up again, face forcibly blank. “Nothing. Here – hold out your arms.”

“She doesn’t…” Arthur felt his lip curl up at the very notion, but said it anyway. “She doesn’t blame you, does she?” Not that he believed Guinevere would wander around the castle as a shade talking to people, whispering poison at them, but grief could do funny things to people. “Because she wouldn’t,” Arthur told him more forcefully, aware like a trickle of spring water from a rockface that he was thinking of the other Myrddin in that moment – the one who everyone seemed to know for his madness. “She would never blame you for what happened.” For visions that may or may not have been true.

“Would you please just stop and put this on.” Merlin shoved at his shoulder in an effort to turn him around.

Aghast, Arthur demanded, “ _Is_ that what you hear her say?”

“No, just… We have to go to dinner.” Merlin wasn’t breathing exactly right, but any number of emotions could have caused that, and his face wasn’t doing anything especially telling. His hands were trembling, though. Not much – not enough to be alarming – but enough to notice. Kind of like muscle fatigue, fine and shivery.

“No? Then what?” Arthur pushed his hands aside again, the vest dragging on the floor for a moment as a result.

“Stop.” Merlin wrenched himself out of Arthur’s grasp and went to force the vest up one of Arthur’s arms. “It’s not important. Just put this on so we can go.”

“It _is_ important.” Arthur extracted himself calmly and left Merlin with the vest again. He could tell that the calm, the steadiness was fracturing, and it may have been cruel of him, but he wanted to break it to see what lay beneath. Merlin twisted around to go at Arthur with the vest again, and as absurd as it was, Arthur danced back as if he were on a battlefield parrying blows from a leather garment. He tried not to let his concern or his puzzlement show, but he wasn’t sure it worked, and when their gazes finally strafed each other, there was something wild in Merlin’s. Without thinking, Arthur reached a hand out to touch it, it looked so foreign there. “Merlin – “

“Don’t – “ Merlin flinched back to avoid Arthur touching his face.

“Just stop,” Arthur whispered, pleading. He feathered his hands at Merlin’s collarbones instead, and then firmed them up to hold him still. “Stop.”

It was a relief when Merlin actually did stop, subsiding between Arthur’s hands with the vest clenched to his diaphragm, the bottom a pool of leather covering his feet like a blanket. Merlin swallowed and looked down at it, eyes gliding shut while Arthur held him by the shoulders as if holding him down to the ground so that he didn’t float away.

There was something captivating about another man’s pain – how it twisted his insides and wrung him silent and limp like a wet bath sheet. As soon as Merlin seemed calm again, Arthur let him go and stepped back, hands held out and open in a gesture of surrender. It occurred to him, as Merlin pulled at the leather vest’s seams as a focus to stay where Arthur put him, that maybe Merlin carried more guilt than anyone realized. He had no one to absolve him, after all; how could he when nearly everything of consequence that he did had to remain secret? The only perspective he had on any of his actions was his own, and Merlin wasn’t the kind of man who forgave himself easily. Arthur knew that – he had seen enough of it to know that this responsibility, this guilt, defined a large part of who Merlin was, just as it defined Arthur as king. Merlin didn’t let it go, though. Maybe he didn’t know how, but one thing Arthur could say for certain was that if he didn’t, it would eat him alive one day.

“She wouldn’t blame you for her death.” Arthur backed up another step because he wasn’t sure that Merlin could understand or accept that, and Arthur had seen enough of his temper breaking lately that he thought it prudent to offer space for it this time. “You did everything you could to save her.”

Merlin twitched his head to one side and Arthur watched the leather crease in his fists. “If that were true, she would be here.” He seemed to be trying to swallow again and failing, like bile that wouldn’t go back down. He held up the vest one more time, a puppet dangling in a box repeating the same trick again and again and again with painted-on eyes that never actually focused on the things they faced. “If you’ll just put this on, sire?”

Arthur shook his head in disbelief and finally just allowed Merlin to put it onto him, since he seemed so fixated on the act. Once they were facing each other again, Arthur stared at the furrowed eyebrows in front of him while Merlin laced up the front of the vest. “You really believe that – you have _that much_ ego?”

“It’s not ego.” Merlin yanked too hard at the laces, and Arthur concealed the wince via manly tongue biting. “I’m the most powerful sorcerer to walk this land.”

Arthur scoffed. “And that’s _not_ ego? I’m not sure I’m the prat here anymore.”

Merlin squinted and blinked, his fingers pausing on a tangle of leather laces, but he shook his head a moment later as if Arthur were the one being stupid. “I can control the balance of life and death. If I had wanted Gwen alive, then she would be.” He fiddled the laces back into order and tightened everything in a line down the center of Arthur’s chest, from the notch of his throat to that delicate space between belly button and groin.

“Merlin, that’s…” Arthur shook his head, aware that he was baring his front teeth under a wrinkled lip in that manner that made him look like a simpleton, and yet not really caring for once. He couldn’t find a word suitably strong enough to convey how utterly wrong the whole notion was. “Do you even remember what happened there?”

Merlin tied off the laces and flared his nostrils as he headed away toward Arthur’s desk to retrieve the crown. He ducked his head a bit and scrubbed his face into the crook of his arm, an uneasy and self-conscious motion. “No. It doesn’t matter.”

Arthur let his eyes go wide and his face slack. “Doesn’t _matter_? You’re judging conduct you don’t even remember.”

Merlin made a show of concentrating on the crown, as if their conversation weren’t worth his full attention. As if it didn’t mean anything to him, which was a huge tell as far as Arthur was concerned. Merlin cared about everyone and everything. “It’s obvious. I don’t need the memory of it to know what happened.” Merlin frowned and sniffed at the crown, then picked up a cloth to buff at bits of filigree before bringing it over to Arthur.

Arthur waited for the weight of the crown to fall over his brow, then immediately removed it and tossed it behind him onto his bed. Merlin blankly watched it bounce across the mattress and tip over against a pillow, nodded, and then just wandered away to sink down on the bench at the tree table. Arthur remained where he was for a moment, just watching the sag of Merlin’s shoulders and the way he drew his elbows in as if to protect his own ribcage, one hand picking in compulsive bursts at his forehead and hairline, his head hanging lower than the nobs of his upper spine where it merged to form his neck. Eventually, Arthur sighed and glanced back at the discarded crown before going over to perch next to Merlin on the bench. He rested his forearms on his knees and clasped his hands between them, then turned his head to look at Merlin, at the curve of an ear peaking out from beneath dark hair. At the arc of a tree branch covered in a corner of bedsheet stretched hanging over his head like a ghost. Arthur waited for Merlin to say something first even though he knew that wouldn’t happen, and then he sighed. “You did everything you could to save her. I saw it, Merlin.”

“Then why isn’t she here?” Just a breath, that. Merlin may not even have said it, except that the syllables lingered between them.

Arthur shook his head and sucked his lips in against his teeth. “You didn’t see her body after.” He had thought he could spare Merlin from the memory of that day, but keeping his peace made it worse. Secrets festered, after all. Hadn’t Arthur learned that time and again? Silence was a disease, not a mercy. “It wasn’t just the enchantment. When Morgana threw her away from the water, it…broke her. She hit the ground hard, and it…she just…” He tried to bring words to it, to the unnatural protrusion of vertebrae when he went to move her cooling body. To the…the bend of her. “And it was killing you. You were pulling it out of her, and… You remember the welts.” He reached out on reflex to trace the back of Merlin’s hand where a ropey red wheal had wrapped over the skin for a month afterwards, but Merlin shrank from him, so he let it be. “The black things. You remember what you said? They were trying to get inside.”

“That was a dream,” Merlin croaked. He traced the phantom line of the same welt Arthur had been reaching to touch.

“It was a memory,” Arthur corrected. “You were pulling them out and they screamed like banshees.”

“Mandrake.” Merlin turned puffy, pale eyes onto Arthur’s face. “You heard them?”

Arthur nodded.

“Only magic folk are supposed to be able to hear them.”

Arthur shrugged. “There was magic everywhere that day. Maybe that was enough.” He looked away again when Merlin did. “I had to make a choice, Merlin. She was dying, and you were… You wouldn’t stop. So I pulled you away.” Arthur rocked in place and shook his head, swallowing and breathing to force back the smell and the sound, and the sight of it. Merlin fought him on it, of course. All the way into the water, he screamed at Arthur to let him go, to let him finish, and Arthur wouldn’t. And behind them on the rocks, when he looked, Guinevere was crying, and smiling in what looked like gratitude, and coughing out blood and black sludge, and Arthur turned his back on her so that he didn’t lose his hold on Merlin as he fought Arthur like a spitting angry cat to get loose. “If either of us bears any of the blame for her death at the end, then it’s me. I made the choice.”

Merlin shook his head, hair ruffling down to obscure his features as he ducked his face into his arm, away from Arthur. “I could’ve saved her.”

“God help me, Merlin. I adored Guinevere. I loved her with all my heart, but she didn’t want you to die for her. I _know_ that. And there was no guarantee. You might have ripped the enchantment out, you might have healed whatever Morgana did to her soul, but her body was broken, and even you’ve said you’re rubbish at healing magic. She was going to die either way. It would have been a waste for you to follow her just for that.”

“I can command life and death; it just needs to stay in balance.”

Arthur felt his eyes grow hot and sucked moisture into his mouth to dispel the cotton there. “I’ll say it again, Merlin: however willing you are, she would not have wanted you to die for her.”

“I didn’t have to!” Merlin shot up off of the bench and stalked in a tight circle as if looking for something to hit. “Morgana did this – she should have put it right!”

 _Morgana._ Arthur’s next breath came shallow and quick despite his best efforts to regulate it. Morgana, laughing. Morgana bleeding out and chanting, like a joke, _Emrys…Emrys…Emrys…_ fingering the tip of the sword protruding from between two ribs, the sword that Merlin had just put there. “Like the questing beast,” Arthur realized. The sorceress paying for the life she tried, unnaturally, to take.

Merlin washed up against the bare middle of the room and wobbled there. “Like the questing beast,” he agreed. His legs bent a bit before he steadied himself and put his back to Arthur, lost in the stone corner he faced.

Arthur let the sick heat spill over his cheeks and then immediately scrubbed at the slick wetness there, angry and betrayed and… It was his own fault, wasn’t it? He remembered coming back out of the water, Merlin splashing and frantic in front of him as he gained the shore first and rushed immediately to Morgana’s body, still and lifeless now with Arthur’s sword still in her. Water streaming from his clothes, his hair as he screamed at Morgana’s face and then broke down into horrible, wrenching sobs while Arthur just stood there, numb. Merlin wailing over Morgana’s dead body not because he had to kill her, not because he regretted it the way Arthur had thought at the time, but because his chance to save Guinevere died with Morgana. Arthur should have been terrified and repulsed by the cold calculation of such a thing, playing lives like cards, but looking at Merlin waver on the other side of the room – remembering the sound of him howling at Guinevere’s wrapped body the next morning as he realized for a second time that he failed… It wasn’t a cold thing that drove Merlin. It may have been a cold thing to do, but the motive for it was not so simple. Fairness…a balance…giving back what you take and paying for your trespasses… It was the oldest justice there was. Like the old religion, it was brutal sometimes, but it wasn’t necessarily undeserved. It wasn’t unfair.

“I stole the Horn of Cathbhadh.”

Arthur looked up, his breathing unsteady, and made a confused sound.

“After we got back, after…”

And then Arthur realized what he was getting at. “After the burial. When we fought, and you disappeared for three days.”

Merlin nodded, but all Arthur could see of him was the line of his back in Gaius’s warm, re-stitched and altered robes, with a fluff of dark hair in the dim light of the room. “I went to Nemeton. I wanted…” His voice guttered out like a candle in a sudden draft. “I needed to apologize. For letting her die. She deserved to know.”

Arthur shook his head and tried to will Merlin to turn around, because the way he was talking implied it went poorly, and Arthur couldn’t imagine – he couldn’t fathom that Guinevere was the one to put all of this self-loathing into Merlin’s head. The Guinevere he knew would have forgiven Merlin before he even managed to get his mouth open. And he was jealous, too, that Merlin had a chance to make amends whereas Arthur didn’t think he could have faced her himself, so soon after. “What did she say?”

Merlin’s ribcage expanded and Arthur watched him refuse to look back, away from the stones in front of him. “She didn’t.” He tipped his head up to gaze at the ceiling, and a bit of wan light from the window caught and reflected the sheen on one cheek like frost. “She wasn’t there.”

Arthur blinked. “Then… Where is she?”

“The Teine Diaga is dark magic,” Merlin replied tonelessly. “It consumes the soul to make room for the will of another.”

“Merlin, _where is she_?”

“Nowhere.” Merlin swayed and let the momentum carry him over to the bed, where he picked up Arthur’s crown and absently smoothed away imagined smudges. “The abyss.” He paced slowly back to where Arthur now stood, unaware of having moved until he found himself at eye level with Merlin. “It’s what the Dochraid said would happen if we failed.” He met Arthur’s gaze now, unflinching and flat. It was artificial. Merlin raised the crown and placed it back on Arthur’s head, shifting it until it sat straight and centered. He then proceeded to tug Arthur’s clothes back into place, minor adjustments here and there until he presumable looked regal enough.

Arthur could feel the shock running cold in his veins. He stood perfectly still while Merlin fussed, unable to fully appreciate the irony or the horror of the situation. Merlin moved around him, draping an intricate chain set with the Pendragon colors around his neck to hang in glittering red and gold across his chest, heavy and suffocating. He had never realized their weight before.

“She forgives me.”

Arthur blinked away the threat of a wet spill he refused to acknowledge and looked at Merlin in confusion. “What?”

“When I hear her voice,” Merlin clarified, his face complicated and pinched. “That’s what she says. That she forgives me.”

Arthur let his gaze drop to where Merlin’s hands shook in a fine, delicate shiver against the gold and jewels draped over Arthur’s breast. It was ironic, wasn’t it? Merlin’s own mind was doing that, tormenting him with her voice, and the most damaging thing it could contrive to give him was forgiveness. Mercy...absolution... They were sharper weapons than anyone gave them credit for. 

 

* * *

_“We’ll find a way to bring her back, Arthur. I promise.”_

 

 

~TBC _~_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short few scenes this time, to set up for the next one. It will be a long one, so I apologize for the delay between.

**Author's Note:**

> Off-screen major character deaths: Mordred (because Arthur accepted the Disir's demands, and they rewarded him by letting his would-be killer die), and Guinevere (because Mordred was dead and didn't follow them to the cauldron of Arianrhod, and no one came to help Arthur and Merlin). Illness: epilepsy, by old timey-names and with old-timey kinds of attitudes towards it. Merlin has been hit over the head so many times, knocked unconscious, and gets barely any treatment for any of it. Eventually, it has to have some kind of cumulative effect. S5 was especially bad for it. The head wound in Another's Sorrow was may have been in part magical, but it was physically serious too - he wasn't waking up and Gaius needed to use magic on him to help him recover, and he ran right off afterwards without any recovery time. Then the The Hollow Queen, being poisoned with black sludge, pushed off a cliff, there was blood in his hair from another head wound, and the herbal tincture caused a seizure (it seems, or it was just an untimely thing caused by the poison or the head wound, or hell, all of the above combined). Then falling off the path to the Cauldron of Arianrhod, with Arthur kicking at him but he didn't wake up, was just the last straw. IMHO.


End file.
